Joe Biden’s election as US president raises reproductive funding hopes – but some caution that reversing rule’s impact will not be quick
Nelly Munyasia breathed a huge sigh of relief when Joe Biden won the US election in November.
“I am excited and I am hopeful that things are going to be better. We are going to access funding and we are going to save the lives of women and girls,” she says, before explaining how tough the past four years has been.
Continue reading...Support services in Poland and abroad say numbers increasing even before legislation is tightened
Polish women are increasingly being forced to travel abroad to seek abortions even though a court ruling to tighten the country’s already strict laws has not yet coming into force, activists have said.
The constitutional court ruled in October that abortion was illegal even in cases where there were severe foetal abnormalities. Around 1,000 abortions a year – almost all of the country’s legal abortion procedures – are carried out for this reason.
Continue reading...If bill approved in senate Argentina would join Cuba and Uruguay as only Latin American countries where abortion is legal
Lawmakers in Argentina’s lower house have passed a bill that would legalise abortion in most cases, in a big step forward for the legislation that could set the tone for a wider shift across Latin America.
The landmark bill, which needs approval from the country’s senate in a debate expected before the end of the year, allows for voluntary abortions to be carried out up to the 14th week of pregnancy.
Continue reading...A pro-abortion movement, symbolized by a green handkerchief, has swept through Latin America, where abortion is punishable by law
Belén ended up in jail after suffering a spontaneous miscarriage. Unaware that she was pregnant, the 25-year-old went to seek medical care at a hospital in Argentina’s northern province of Tucumán when she suffered abdominal pain.
In accordance with Argentina’s stringent anti-abortion legislation, Belén (not her real name) was reported by the hospital to the authorities and sentenced to eight years in prison for homicide. She did not regain her freedom until almost three years later, in 2017, after a feminist lawyer who took up her case convinced the Tucumán supreme court to overturn her conviction.
“There are many Beléns in Argentina and this madness will continue until abortion is legalized,” said Ana Correa, pro-abortion campaigner and author of the book Somos Belén (We Are Belén).
That long-awaited moment may be about to arrive.
Argentina is expected to move one step away from becoming the first major Latin American nation to legalize abortion on Thursday, when the lower house of congress votes on a legal abortion bill sponsored by president Alberto Fernández. The president holds a majority in the lower house, and a government source said the senate could vote the move into law as soon as next week.
The push for reform in Argentina is part of a pro-abortion “green wave” sweeping through Latin America, symbolized by the green handkerchief that has become the campaign’s instantly-recognizable flag across the entire region.
“The women of Argentina now enjoy the encouragement of all Latin America, where the green handkerchief is being raised up high from north to south,” said Claudia Piñeiro, an Argentinian author who has spent years campaigning for legal abortion.
US left with few allies as it tries to change wording on topic of reproductive healthcare
The outgoing Trump administration’s final days at the United Nations have resulted in a deepening of US isolation on social and health issues, with only a handful of allies including Russia, Belarus and Syria.
In one vote this week, the US was entirely alone in backing its own amendment to a seemingly uncontroversial resolution about efforts to treat medical complications from childbirth. It called for the removal of references to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Population Fund.
Continue reading...Organisation says Black Lives Matter movement reaffirmed commitment to changing name to MSI Reproductive Choices
Marie Stopes International (MSI) is to change its name in an attempt to break its association with the family planning pioneer.
From Tuesday, the abortion and contraception provider, which operates in 37 countries, will abbreviate the initials and go by the name MSI Reproductive Choices.
Continue reading...As Poland attempts to pass a new abortion law that amounts to a near-total ban on terminations, including in cases where a baby is sure to die soon after birth, the country's biggest protests in four decades have erupted, with Polish women challenging church as well as state. Karolina Więckiewicz is a lawyer with the charity Abortion Without Borders, which advises Polish women on abortions and helps them to avail of safe, legal procedures overseas. We follow her on to the streets as women of all ages rise up to demand rights over their own bodies, and an end to social stigma around sex and abortion
Continue reading...Mass demonstrations have exposed underlying anger at political and religious interference in people’s everyday lives
For 14 nights they have marched, enraged by a near-total ban on abortion that has stirred a generation to stage the largest mass demonstrations that Poland has seen since Solidarność toppled the communist regime in the 1980s.
Until soaring coronavirus numbers and a looming national lockdown made it almost impossible, up to a million people nightly defied a government ban on protests, taking to the streets from Warsaw to Łódź, Poznań to Wrocław, Gdańsk to Kraków.
Continue reading...Anti-government rallies continue over court’s ruling to restrict access to terminations
Poland’s rightwing government has delayed implementation of a controversial court ruling that would outlaw almost all abortion after it prompted the largest protests since the fall of communism.
“There is a discussion going on, and it would be good to take some time for dialogue and for finding a new position in this situation, which is difficult and stirs high emotions,” Michał Dworczyk, the head of the prime minister’s office, told Polish media on Tuesday.
Continue reading...About 100,00o people take to the streets of Warsaw to oppose tightened abortion law
About one hundred thousand protesters took to the streets of the Polish capital, Warsaw, on Friday, in the largest demonstration of popular anger directed against Poland’s ruling rightwing Law and Justice party (PiS) since it assumed office in 2015.
Protests have been held across the country since Poland’s constitutional tribunal declared earlier this month that abortions in instances where a foetus is diagnosed with a serious and irreversible birth defect were unconstitutional. Such procedures constitute about 96% of legal abortions in Poland, which already has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe.
Continue reading...Institutions appear to enforce controversial ban despite legislation not yet taking effect
Hospitals in Poland have been turning away women seeking abortions even though a court ruling that has instituted a near-total ban on terminations has not yet taken effect.
The ban, which outlaws one of the three narrow exceptions under which abortion is still permitted – that of severe foetal defects – has sparked huge protests in Poland.
Continue reading...Opposition politicians brought protests over a near-total ban on abortion in Poland to the floor of parliament.
Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus, from the opposition Lewica (Left) party, led a protest of other opposition members wearing masks and T-shirts bearing the lightning bolt symbol of the 'Women's Strike' movement, which has been leading nationwide protests on the abortion ban.
They held up placards with slogans such as 'this is war' and 'legalise abortion', before walking to the benches where lawmakers from the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party were sitting.
There have been protests across Poland after a court ruling said abortion due to foetal abnormalities, for which the majority of legal abortions are performed in Poland, was unconstitutional.
Continue reading...Thousands march in opposition to ruling that could lead to near total ban on abortions
Thousands of protesters turned out in towns and cities across Poland on Monday as a political crisis sparked by an impending near total ban on abortion showed no sign of abating.
Drivers created a series of blockades in city centres and thousands of people marched to express their anger at a ruling by Poland’s constitutional tribunal that, if implemented, would ban terminations even in instances where a foetus is diagnosed with a serious and irreversible birth defect.
Continue reading...Protests follow ruling that law allowing abortion of malformed foetuses is incompatible with constitution
Thousands of people marched in cities across Poland on Saturday in the third straight day of protests against a near-total ban on abortion, with some promising further action in the coming days.
The protesters were reacting to Thursday’s ruling by Poland’s highest court that an existing law allowing the abortion of malformed foetuses was incompatible with the constitution.
Continue reading...Police in Warsaw clashed with protesters during demonstrations against a constitutional tribunal ruling that imposes a near-total ban on abortion. Tens of thousands of people rallied across Poland on Friday, defying the country's tight coronavirus restrictions
Continue reading...Demonstrations planned amid anger over court decision banning almost all abortions
Protests are planned for various Polish cities this weekend amid public anger over a ruling banning almost all abortion in the country.
Poland already has some of the most draconian abortion laws in Europe, and on Thursday a constitutional tribunal ruled that one of the few exceptions to the ban – cases of severe foetal impairment – should also be made illegal. These cases, which hardline Catholic anti-abortion activists have called “eugenic abortion”, made up almost all of the small number of abortions performed legally in Poland.
Continue reading...Move is part of a campaign by Trump administration to reorient US foreign policy in a more socially conservative direction
The US has today signed an anti-abortion declaration with a group of about 30 largely illiberal or authoritarian governments, after the failure of an effort to expand the conservative coalition.
The “Geneva Consensus Declaration” calls on states to promote women’s rights and health – but without access to abortion – and is part of a campaign by Trump administration, led by secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, to reorient US foreign policy in a more socially conservative direction, even at the expense of alienating traditional western allies.
Continue reading...Amy Coney Barrett spent most of her time avoiding key questions during three days of Senate hearings to confirm her as a supreme court justice.
Barrett would become the third justice on the court to be appointed by Donald Trump – and her confirmation would give conservatives a bulletproof, six-justice majority on the nine-member court, which decides cases by a simple majority.
Barrett, a conservative Christian who has criticized the high court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act (ACA), who has publicly opposed reproductive rights and who was a trustee at a school whose handbook included a stated opposition to same-sex marriage, is seen on the left as part of a power play by Donald Trump
Continue reading...On the second day of hearings before the Senate judiciary committee, Democrats pressed supreme court nominee Amy Coney Barrett on healthcare, election law and abortion rights – and met with little success.
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Continue reading...Amid talk of originalism, harking to a time when only white men with property could vote, Republican ears pricked up
Depending on your point of view, the woman seated before the Senate judiciary committee for her first day of questioning was either the female Scalia or the anti-RBG. Or maybe, of course, both.
Related: Amy Coney Barrett dodges abortion, healthcare and election law questions
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