Category Archives: Abortion

Victoria Greens spruik family ties in election pitch as ageing millennials defy drift to conservatism

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Reproductive rights and parenting become hot topics in state election as parties on the left court women and young families

Kissing babies may be an election campaign trail cliche but for the Victorian Greens, it might also be sign their party – just like their supporter base – has grown up.

Announcing a plan for five days of reproductive leave for public sector workers this week, leader Samantha Ratnam, deputy Ellen Sandell and their candidate for the seat of Richmond, Gabrielle de Vietri, were joined by their children under two.

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French right votes down move to make abortion constitutional right

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Further proposals to be put before lower house next month after first attempt rejected in senate

The French government has said it supports making the country the first in the world to enshrine abortion as a constitutional right, after the right-dominated senate voted down the left’s first attempt at a proposal.

Several political parties in France, from the left to the centrist lawmakers of Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party, began pushing for abortion rights to be written into the constitution after the US supreme court’s decision in June to overturn the landmark Roe v Wade ruling, which recognised a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion and legalised it nationwide.

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Italian senator renews anti-abortion foetus rights proposal

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Maurizio Gasparri has higher chance of success this time after rightwing coalition’s election victory

An Italian senator has submitted a proposal for an amendment to Italy’s civil code that would recognise a foetus as a human being, which if passed into law could enable pregnancy terminations to be classified as murder.

Maurizio Gasparri, a politician with Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, which is part of the government led by Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy – a party with neofascist origins – expected to be sworn in next week, unleashed a barrage of criticism from members of the opposition when he presented his “rights of the unborn child” proposal to the senate.

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Abortion is key motivator for Democratic-leaning voters in US midterms, poll finds

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More than half claim they are more motivated to vote than in previous elections, with 50% of those people citing abortion

More than half of Democratic-leaning voters say abortion has become a crucial motivation for them to vote in next month’s US midterm elections, according to a recent poll.

A survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) conducted in September reveals that June’s supreme court decision to overturn Roe v Wade has put a fire under Democratic voters, with more than half claiming they are more motivated to vote than in previous elections, and 50% of those citing as their prime reason the ruling on abortion.

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Republican Chuck Grassley vows to vote against a national abortion ban

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The longest-tenured US senator joins a growing chorus of conservative lawmakers opposed to such a restriction

The longest-tenured Republican in the US Senate has pledged to vote against a national ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy which a prominent fellow party member and chamber colleague proposed last month, joining a growing chorus of conservative lawmakers opposed to that idea.

Chuck Grassley, who’s been one of Iowa’s senators since 1980 and is seeking an eighth term in his seat during November’s midterms, expressed his opposition to such a ban during a televised debate Thursday night with his Democratic challenger Mike Franken.

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Ohio court blocks six-week abortion ban indefinitely

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As litigation continues, abortions up to 22 weeks of pregnancy remain legal in state

The American Civil Liberties Union and other abortion rights groups have won a ruling from a lower court in Ohio that has indefinitely blocked the state’s ban on terminating pregnancies after six weeks.

In a statement released on Friday, the ACLU announced that Judge Christian Jenkins of the Hamilton county court of common pleas said that it would grant abortion providers’ and advocates’ request for a preliminary injunction against Ohio’s senate bill 23 (SB 23), a law that prohibits abortions starting at roughly a month and a half of pregnancy.

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Woman who said Herschel Walker paid for abortion also has child with him – report

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Unnamed woman conceived another child with Republican Senate candidate years after the abortion, according to Daily Beast

A woman who said Herschel Walker paid for her abortion in 2009 is the mother of one of his children, according to a new report, undercutting the Georgia Republican Senate candidate’s claim to not know who she was.

The Daily Beast, which first reported the abortion, said it had agreed not to reveal details of the woman’s identity.

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Andrew Thorburn resigns as Essendon CEO after one day over links to controversial church

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Essendon says City on a Hill’s values are in ‘direct contradiction’ with its own, as Daniel Andrews labels its views on homosexuality and abortion ‘appalling’

Andrew Thorburn has resigned as Essendon chief executive 24 hours after being appointed because his links to a church condemning homosexuality and abortion were in “direct contradiction” to the values of the AFL club.

The Bombers announced on Tuesday afternoon that Thorburn, despite not holding the same personal views as the City on the Hill movement for which he is chairman, felt he could not serve in both roles and had offered his resignation.

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Herschel Walker: anti-abortion Senate nominee denies media report he paid for abortion in 2009

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Republican candidate for US Senate in Georgia who has vehemently opposed abortion rights denies a media report he paid for an abortion for an anonymous former girlfriend in 2009, describing it as ‘a flat out lie’

A Republican nominee for the US Senate, who strongly opposes abortion rights, has denied a Daily Beast report that he paid for an abortion for a former girlfriend in 2009. Herschel Walker, a former American football player who is running for the US Senate in Georgia, called the accusation a “flat-out lie” and says he will sue the news outlet for defamation.

The Daily Beast published claims from a woman who says Walker paid for her abortion when they were dating. The woman, who was not named, claimed the allegation was supported by a receipt showing a $575 payment for the procedure, along with a get-well card, purportedly from Walker.

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Phoenix clinic devises workaround for abortion care after Arizona enforces ban

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The solution by Camelback Family Planning ensures patients can access pills and treatment without breaking the law

A Phoenix abortion clinic has come up with a way for patients who can end their pregnancy using a pill to get the medication quickly without running afoul of a resurrected Arizona law that bans most abortions.

Under the arrangement that began on Monday, patients will have an ultrasound in Arizona, get a prescription through a tele-health appointment with a California doctor and then have it mailed to a post office in a California border town for pickup, all for free.

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Australian woman deported from US says border agency told her questions about abortion were policy

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Madolline Gourley says a special agent in the office of professional responsibility told her the questions she was asked were in line with Customs and Border Protection procedures

An Australian woman says the US border agency told her that asking travellers about terminating a pregnancy is in line with their policies after she was detained at an airport and then deported.

Madolline Gourley says she was asked whether she’d had an abortion while detained at Los Angeles airport in June. It came days after Roe v Wade – the landmark court case that legalised abortion – was overturned in the United States.

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Top Republican urged murder charges for women who defied abortion ban

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Pennsylvania governor hopeful Doug Mastriano made comments in 2019 while discussing abortion bill he proposed as state senator

Asked in 2019 if he was saying women should be charged with murder for violating an abortion ban he proposed, Doug Mastriano, now the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, said: “Yes, I am.”

Mastriano was talking to WITF, a radio station, about a bill he sponsored as a state senator.

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Nearly all abortions become illegal in Arizona

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Several clinics halt procedure as dual measures, including 19th-century ban with no exception for rape or incest, take effect

Almost all abortions became illegal in Arizona on Saturday, after a new law banning abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy took effect and a judge lifted an almost 50-year-old injunction that blocked a near-total ban on abortions from being enforced in the state.

Judge Kellie Johnson of Pima county’s superior court released a ruling on Friday that allowed the enforcement of the decades-old ban, a day before a new law that would ban most procedures after 15 weeks was scheduled to take effect, reported the Washington Post.

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Arizona can enforce near-total abortion ban, judge rules

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Ruling brings back law blocked for nearly 50 years, and means clinics offering the procedure would face criminal charges

Arizona can enforce a near-total ban on abortions that has been blocked for nearly 50 years, a judge ruled Friday, meaning that clinics statewide will have to stop providing the procedures to avoid criminal charges against doctors and other medical workers.

The judge lifted a decades-old injunction that blocked enforcement of the law on the books since before Arizona became a state. The only exemption to the ban is if the woman’s life is in jeopardy.

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‘I can’t stay silent’: Roe reversal powers new generation to sign up and vote

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Huge bloc of women expected to turn out in November midterms to protect abortion rights – could it alter the election outcome?

Sonya Koenig is scared. A 19-year-old student from Kalamazoo, Michigan, Koenig often stays up until 2am thinking. Sometimes she paces up and down the hall, or speaks to her roommate about nightmare scenarios in which she ends up pregnant and in need of an abortion.

“Being in college, I hear stories all the time of women getting drugged at parties, or just walking down the street, and something unfortunate can happen,” says Koenig, a freshman at Michigan State University. “A guy can walk away, but [these abortion bans] mean the woman has to choose: ‘Do I want to give this baby up … or raise this child with no help from anybody?’ That’s a really hard decision.”

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Near-total abortion ban with narrow exceptions takes effect in Indiana

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Law effectively wipes out abortion access for 1.5m people in the state, which was a safe haven for those seeking the procedure

A sweeping abortion ban went into effect in Indiana on Thursday, containing only extremely narrow exceptions for medical emergencies, rape and incest and making it the latest state to largely outlaw the procedure in the US.

The ban is being challenged in court by the ACLU and several abortion care providers, with hearings set to start on 19 September.

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Louisiana woman carrying skull-less fetus forced to travel to New York for an abortion

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Nancy Davis suffered ‘unspeakable pain’ due to the poorly worded law that meant a hospital in her home state refused to terminate the pregnancy

An expectant Louisiana woman who was carrying a skull-less fetus that would die within a short time from birth ultimately traveled about 1,400 miles to New York City to terminate her pregnancy after her local hospital denied her an abortion amid uncertainty over the procedure’s legality.

Nancy Davis, 36, told the Guardian that she had her pregnancy terminated on 1 September after traveling from her home town of Baton Rouge to a clinic in Manhattan whose staff had agreed to complete the procedure.

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Hungary tightens abortion access with listen to ‘foetal heartbeat’ rule

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Fears move will pave way for more restrictions in country where terminations are widely accepted

Hungarian women seeking an abortion will be obliged to “listen to the foetal heartbeat” before they can access the procedure, according to a new decree issued by the government of the far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán.

The new regulation is due to come into force on Thursday.

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Democrats condemn Lindsey Graham’s nationwide abortion ban proposal – live

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Indiana to ban abortion on Thursday

As the news cycle today has focused on senator Lindsey Graham’s proposals for a national abortion ban from 15 weeks, its worth remembering that Republican-controlled Indiana will bring in its almost total ban on Thursday.

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Republican Lindsey Graham proposes nationwide 15-week abortion ban

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Hardline South Carolina senator plans for new bill on national abortion restrictions, with fewer than 60 days until midterms

Senator Lindsey Graham was proposing legislation on Tuesday for a nationwide 15-week abortion ban, a politically risky strategy as a backlash grows to the supreme court ruling earlier this summer overturning federal protections for the procedure.

Polling shows that 57% of Americans disapproved of the court’s June reversal of the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling guaranteeing access to abortion, and 62% say the procedure should be legal in all or most cases.

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