Abortion – Abortion Clinics, Abortion Pill, Abortion Information

Hundreds of thousands of women gathered in Washington in a kind of counterinauguration after President Trump took office on Friday.

• They were joined by crowds in cities across: In Chicago, the size of a rally so quickly outgrew early estimates that the march that was to follow was canceled for safety. In Manhattan, Fifth Avenue became a river of pink hats, while in downtown Los Angeles, even before the gathering crowd stretched itself out to march, it was more than a quarter mile deep on several streets.

• Begun as a Facebook post just after the election, the march is the start of what organizers hope could be a sustained campaign of protest in a polarized America, unifying demonstrators around issues like reproductive rights, immigration and civil rights. The movement has also encountereddivisions.

Source: The New York Times

Cabinet approval has been sought to legalize abortions in the instances of rape and incest, underage pregnancies (pregnancy occurring in a girl below 16) and serious foetal impairment, it is learnt.

For this purpose, the government is seeking to draft separate legislations as amendments to the Penal Code and to the Code of Criminal Procedure Act to provide for it.

The Justice Ministry has initiated action in this regard in pursuant to the recommendations on decriminalization of abortion by the Committee on GSP plus and another committee headed by Prof. Savitri Goonesekere. In a report submitted to the Cabinet seeking amendments to the existing laws, recommendations have been made in this respect.

The committee has identified that a similar attempt to decriminalize abortions in such cases in 1995 by introducing a bill. However it was withdrawn due to objections and protests. Currently, abortion or termination of pregnancies is criminalized in the Penal Code except in instances where the mental; and physical well-being of a woman concerned is affected.

The Cabinet report says that septic abortions remain a leading cause of maternal deaths. It says 90 per cent of abortions are performed on married women, and 8.9 percent on unmarried women.

Section 303 of the Penal Code says, “Whoever voluntarily causes a woman with child to miscarry shall, if such miscarriage be not caused in good faith for the purpose of saving the life of the woman , be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine or with both, and if the woman be quick with child, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years , and also be liable to fine.”

Source: Daily Mirror

http://www.dailymirror.lk/article/Cabinet-approval-sought-to-legalize-abortions-122469.html

Northern Territory women should be able to get abortions at any stage of their pregnancy, without needing a doctor’s approval, a legal rights advocacy group has said.

The recommendation is one of several made by the Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC) in its response to the NT Government’s proposed pregnancy termination law reforms.

The Government is proposing changes including making it easier to get medical abortions, and requiring women to get counselling on their choices before accessing terminations.

The HRLC submission is broadly supportive of the changes.

But it said the Government’s changes would not alter the present law that forbids a woman to get an abortion after 23 weeks unless it would save her life.

HRLC legal advocacy director Adrianne Walters said that stipulation should be changed.

“What that means is that a woman who has been told that her foetus has a fatal abnormality and won’t survive, she doesn’t have any option — she has to keep the pregnancy,” Ms Walters said.

“If a woman was raped and she’s 24 weeks pregnant and she’s seeking an abortion — the law as it currently stands wouldn’t let her have that.”

The submission makes clear women should have the right to an abortion at any stage of pregnancy, without needing approval.

But it goes on to recommend that if doctor approval is made mandatory, that limit should not apply before 24 weeks.

It recommended the law should allow doctors the discretion to consider broader factors for abortions after 24 weeks, including a woman’s psychological and social circumstances.

“It’s important to bear in mind abortions after 20 weeks are extremely rare — around 1 to 2 per cent nationally — and they often occur in situations that are highly distressing,” Ms Walters said.

“It’s important that the law is broad and accounts for the all the situations that women might find themselves in.”

She disagreed that lobbying for women’s rights to get an abortion at any stage of their pregnancy risked putting off some who supported smaller changes to widen access.

“There’s a model in the ACT that doesn’t require women to have to justify their decision making,” she said.

“It has abortion regulated as any other medical procedure and that operates effectively in the ACT.”

Source: ABC AU

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-18/calls-for-nt-to-allow-abortion-at-any-stage-of-pregnancy/8192426

“No man has the right to give his opinion on abortion,” controversial PN candidate Salvu Mallia said on INDEPTH.

Interviewed by The Malta Independent news editor Rachel Attard, Mr Mallia said that, “I should have never pronounced myself against abortion because I am not a woman. The issue of abortion is an issue that only women should speak about.”

Mr Mallia said that abortion is an issue that concerns the woman and the foetus, and the man should have no say in the matter or interfere in the decision. Mr Mallia said that women should stop allowing men to get involved in what is a woman’s right.

Salvu Mallia was confirmed as a PN candidate for the upcoming general elections during a meeting of the Executive Council that was held last October. He will contest the 2nd and 12th electoral districts.

http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2017-01-17/blogs-opinions/INDEPTH-Salvu-Mallia-does-not-regret-comparing-Muscat-to-Hitler-6736169001

Source: The Independent MT

MUMBAI: The Supreme Court permitted a 22-year-old woman in her 24th week of pregnancy to undergo termination of pregnancy after medical reports found the foetus to be without a skull.

The woman had found out about the defect in the 21st week of gestation when she had a sonography done at a private clinic in the western suburbs of Mumbai.

Under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, abortion is legal in India only up to 20 weeks of pregnancy provided it involves a risk to the life of the pregnant woman or poses a threat of grave injury to physical or mental health, or involves a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities.

Recently, in a rare judgment, the Supreme Court permitted a rape survivor to terminate her pregnancy at 24 weeks.

The Supreme Court had asked the same committee of doctors from KEM Hospital that had given its opinion in the rape survivor’s case in July 2016, to look into the current case.

An amendment drafted in 2014 to a 1971 Act sought to increase the abortion time limit from 20 weeks to 24 weeks. Additionally, the draft bill also recommends that termination be allowed without a time limit in cases where doctors detect a foetal anomaly.

http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2017/jan/16/supreme-court-permits-termination-of-pregnancy-at-24-weeks-1560127.html

Source: New Indian Expres

A move to legalise access to abortion for women who experience fatal foetal abnormalities in Northern Ireland will not be considered because of the collapse of the assembly, the Stormont health minister has said.

Sinn Fein has said it will prioritise increasing abortion access and other equality issues if it is in talks with the DUP after a likely election this year.

Abortion is banned in Northern Ireland in all but a small number of circumstances. In December 2015, the Belfast high court ruled that denying access to the procedure in cases of rape, incest and fatal foetal abnormalities was a breach of human rights.

David Ford, who was justice minister at the time, ruled out legislating for terminations for victims of sexual crime but tried to progress a bill for women who experienced fatal foetal abnormalities. An expert group was also established last year to consider the possible change in the law.

If the assembly is dissolved ministers will no longer be able to consider the possible change in the law from the expert commission or Mr Ford’s bill.

“I indicated previously that I would work with the justice minister to bring forward proposals in the new year for consideration by the [ministerial] executive, taking account of the findings of the fatal foetal abnormality working group,” Michelle O’Neill, the Sinn Fein MLA and health minister, said.

“The current situation is that there is no longer an executive in place to consider those proposals, as a result of the fallout over the renewable heat incentive controversy.”

Unlike the Republic, abortion rights could be extended in Northern Ireland through a straightforward legal change without the need for a referendum.

A Sinn Fein spokesman yesterday told The Times that the party would push for legislative changes if it is in talks to form the next Northern Irish government.

The party had said last week that Mr McGuinness’s resignation was partly due to the DUP’s reluctance to progress issues such as abortion and marriage equality.

“The apparent collapse of the executive means that there is now no end in sight to the trauma inflicted on women with fatal foetal diagnoses of being forced to travel to England to seek lawful abortion,” Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty International’s Northern Ireland programme director, said.

“Whoever is in ministerial office after the election must address this disgraceful situation and also that of other women left with a choice between boarding a plane or facing prosecution simply for seeking healthcare available on the NHS in every other part of the UK.”

Northern Ireland has a vocal anti-abortion lobby and Stormont has previously rejected calls to relax abortion laws. Jim Wells, the former DUP health minister, welcomed the delay in considering new abortion legislation.

“The minister is saying that she cannot take this issue forward because there is currently no executive to refer it to,” he said. “If the executive returns then the issue may come back on to the table as it were. I believe that there is no need whatsoever for any change in the current law on abortion in Northern Ireland.”

The 1967 UK Abortion Act effectively made the procedure available to any woman who needed it after a spate of deaths from backstreet terminations. The act was never extended to Northern Ireland, which is still regulated under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act.

The Republic had operated under the same law until the 2013 Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act was passed which clarified how suicidal women could access a termination.

Performing the procedure or procuring an abortion is punishable by a criminal conviction in both jurisdictions.

Three women have appeared before the courts in Northern Ireland in the last year facing charges relating to ordering abortion pills online.

The most recent case involves a 21-year-old woman and a 22-year-old man. This week, Belfast high court was told that the woman accused of taking drugs to induce a miscarriage would be at heightened risk of suicide if she was identified.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/ireland/abortion-rights-on-hold-in-stormont-turmoil-ztpp6jk7t

Source: The Times