Tag: Abortion – Medical termination of Pregnancy(MTP)

In Missouri, the abortion licence of the Saint-Louis Clinic, the only state clinic to perform abortions, was extended by the Court from 31 May to 4 June. The renewal of this licence shall remain pending until the new hearing, scheduled for Tuesday morning.

The abortion clinic in Saint-Louis, which is run by Planned Parenthood, filed a lawsuit against Governor Mike Parson after he decided not to renew its abortion licence “for reasons of non-compliance”. In fact, the Governor has accused the clinic of “wilfully and repeatedly violating state laws”, and health authorities say they have discovered “deficiencies” during a routine inspection last March; they “demand to interview all doctors who have performed abortions during the past year at the facility”. However, the clinic’s doctors “refuse to comply with for fear of criminal charges”. Consequently, the authorities refused to extend the clinic’s operating licence, “which was set to expire at midnight on Friday”.

On Friday, in a tense context of pro- and anti-abortion demonstrations, the institution brought the case before the court. Judge Michael Stelzer issued his decision at the end of the day: considering that a closure of the facility would cause “immediate and irreparable harm”, he decided that the authorization to perform abortions would be extended beyond Friday’s midnight deadline, and asked for further consideration of the case after 4 June.

Republican Governor Mike Parson recently welcomed the fact that the number of abortions went “from 20,000 to 3,000″ in his state. If the renewal of the licence is not eventually granted to the Saint-Louis Clinic, Missouri will become the only U.S. state that does not offer abortion services.

AFP (31/05/2019 – 20h53) – La clinique du Missouri menacée peut continuer à pratiquer des avortements

AFP, Charlotte Plantive (31/05/2019 – 21h22) – La justice américaine offre un répit à l’unique clinique du Missouri où avorter

Photo : Pixabay/DR

A young Canadian woman went to have an abortion at the Centre Intégré Universitaire de Santé et de Services Sociaux (CIUSSS – integrated university centre for health and social services), in the Centre-Sud-de-l’Île-de-Montréal in Quebec, when she was more than five months pregnant.

The abortion procedure began with an intervention to dilate her cervix. A product causing cardiac arrest of the foetus was then injected and “a final session was scheduled at the clinic for the following day” to proceed with extracting the child. During the night, however, the patient experienced pain and bleeding and then gave birth prematurely. When the emergency personnel arrived, the young English-speaking woman “was scared stiff” and asked them to “save her child“. Although “cardiac massages were attempted on the baby,” it was in vain since he died of a cardiac arrest.

The young woman was “deeply traumatized by the experience,” as were several of the hospital’s employees. An investigation is currently under way to examine the reasons why this abortion ‘failed’.

La Presse CA, Marc Thibodeau (04/06/19) – Un avortement tourne au drame à Montréal

The Governor of the State of Missouri, Mike Parson, signed a law on Friday reducing the period during which abortion is decriminalized to eight weeks. Exceptions are provided for “when there is a risk of death or irreversible physical injury to an important function of the pregnant woman’s body”, but not in the case of rape or incest. This last point was strongly contested, but the Governor justified his approval by explaining that even in cases of rape or incest the permitted period of two months was already more than sufficient to take a decision. The law provides for a prison sentence of between five and fifteen years for doctors performing illegal abortions, whereas women will never be prosecuted.

The law is set to come into force on 28 August 2019. Legal challenges have already been planned by opponents of the law, including the Missouri ACLU, which has stated that it is “exploring all options […] to prevent the law from coming taking effect”. Unlike other pro-life laws recently signed in other American states, such as in Alabama two weeks ago[1], lawmakers hope that this law will avoid legal challenges and is not intended to provoke them. The bill provides for an extended period of 14, 18, or even 20 weeks in the event that the eight-week law is repealed.

The law also bans abortion requests based on race, sex, or a medical diagnosis such as Down syndrome. It also requires for the parent granting written consent for his or her under-age daughter to have an abortion to inform the other parent.

In the Saint Louis clinic, the only clinic in Missouri authorized to perform abortions, 3,903 abortions were performed in 2017, including 1,673 before the ninth week, and 119 at more than 20 weeks. In 2018, provisional figures show that 2,910 abortions were performed, including 433 at eight weeks and 267 before the seventh week.

[1] See U.S.: Governor signs law prohibiting abortion in Alabama

Washington Times, Summer Ballentine (24/05/2019) – Missouri governor Signs bill banning abortions at 8 weeks

Danish researchers at the University of Copenhagen have carried out a large-scale study on the link between hormonal contraception and depression. This study, published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, states that taking a contraceptive pill increases the risk of depression by 40% on average, with a higher risk among adolescent girls.

Using hormonal contraceptives has also been linked with increased use of antidepressants, which varies according to the type of hormonal contraception:

• The patch doubles the risk of using antidepressants
• The vaginal ring increases the risk by 50%
• The progestogen-only pill increases the risk by 30%
• The estrogen-progestin pill increases the risk by 20%

“We have known for decades that estrogens and progesterone, which are sex hormones, influence many women’s mood,” added Dr Øjvind Lidegaard, a professor at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark and lead supervisor of the study: “It is therefore not very surprising that artificial external hormones, which act in the same way and on the same centres as natural hormones, can also influence women’s mood and even cause depression “.

The study examined data from one million women aged 15 to 34 over a 14-year period. None of them were depressed at the beginning of the study. After six months, “women who took a contraceptive pill had a 40% higher risk of developing depression than others”.

Presse Santé, Marie Desange (28/05/2019) – Pilule contraceptive: hausse de 40% du risque de dépression

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today on Indiana’s “restrictive” abortion law. It validated certain provisions of the law and invalidated others. In doing so, it has authorized the requirement to bury or incinerate the tissues of aborted foetuses as “other human remains” and not as “medical waste”, while “not affecting women’s right” to abortion, thus allowing the law to take effect.

On the other hand, the Supreme Court declared that the State could not ban women from having an abortion due to “the sex, race, or a deformity of the foetus”, in particular if Down syndrome is detected.  On this last point, however, it stated that it had followed its “usual practice of rejecting applications until the legal points raised have been considered by more courts of appeals”, thus reserving the right to change its stance at a later date.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence welcomed the Supreme Court’s first validation of “Indiana’s provision that protects the sanctity of life by requiring that the remains of aborted babies be treated with respect and dignity”. As for the second decision, he said he was “confident that the Supreme Court will later consider one of the many laws banning abortions throughout the United States on the basis of sex, race, or disability […] Countries around the world are banning selective abortions and the United States should do the same”.

Further reading: 

Will the ban on aborting babies with Down syndrome in Indiana be upheld?

AFP (28/05/2019)

A new bill to decriminalize abortion has just been introduced into Argentina’s parliament. In 2018, a comparable bill was passed by parliament but rejected by the more conservative senate by just a few votes (38 votes against, 31 votes in favour, 2 abstentions) [1].  Since then, the context has changed as Argentinians will be going to the polls in October this year for the presidential and legislative elections. Supporters and detractors of abortion are therefore publicly asking each elected official to state in public his or her personal convictions. “Con aborto no te voto” (pro-abortion, I’m not voting for you) proclaim the placards in the marches of those who support “the right to life for both the mother and the baby”. The current president, Macri, claims to be “pro-life”, while his main opponent, Alberto Fernández, is in favour of decriminalizing abortion. Those claiming the right to abortion are also making this request: “We’re saying that we cannot vote without knowing everyone’s position”.

The bill provides for total decriminalization up to 14 weeks, as in 2018, but does not allow any possible recourse to conscientious objection, regarding this as “denial of a right based on religious and moral beliefs”. It applies to all women “and other identities likely to be pregnant”. The bill retains full decriminalization, regardless of the circumstances and time limits, for women who have an abortion, while also criminalizing doctors’ refusal to perform an abortion or defer it until the time limit. It adds a clause obliging the public health system to cover the full cost of abortions. Beyond 14 weeks, the grounds for authorizing abortion would be rape and risks to the mother’s life or physical/psychological health, defined as “overall physical, mental and social well-being,” but withdraws extending the time limit in the event of foetal malformation. The bill includes sex education classes in schools, which would no longer present abortion as a problem but as a right. For women with disabilities, consent will no longer be sought from their legal representatives but from the women themselves. Finally, the guaranteed waiting period for an abortion would be less than five days after the request, whereas the former bill did not mention any waiting period.

For further reading:

2,400,000 people in Argentina demonstrate against abortion

[1] See MPs refuse to legalise abortion in Argentina

RTVE (28/05/2019) – La despenalización del aborto vuelve al Congreso argentino

El Pais (29/05/2019) – El aborto se abre paso en la campaña electoral argentina

Todo Noticias (29/05/2019) – Paso a paso: cómo es el trámite legislativo para que traten el aborto legal en el Congreso

Photo : Pixabay/DR

On 30 May, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards passed a law banning abortion as soon as a heart beat is detected, normally around the sixth week of pregnancy. An exception is provided if the mother’s life is in jeopardy. Louisiana lawmakers overwhelmingly approved the ban with a vote of 79 to 23 in the House and 31 to 5 in the Senate.

Many other American states such as Georgia, Ohio, Mississippi, Kentucky, Iowa, and North Dakota have recently passed similar legislation. Alabama has also banned almost all abortions, even in cases of incest or rape. Missouri, in turn, has passed legislation to reduce the abortion period to the eighth week of pregnancy. However, several of these laws are currently being challenged in court.

Janet Mills, the Governor of Maine, has signed a bill allowing non-physicians to perform abortions, including nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and nurse-midwives.

For further reading:

U.S.: Supreme Court partially invalidates Indiana’s law on abortion

U.S.: Governor signs law prohibiting abortion in Alabama

U.S.: Georgia to become the fourth state to adopt the “Heartbeat bill”

Abortion: the “Heartbeat bill” adopted by Mississippi Lawmakers

Heartbeat bill: Kentucky’s turn to vote

AFP (29/05/19) ; Washington Times, Melinda Deslatte (30/05/19) – Louisiana’s Democratic governor signs abortion ban into law ; Washington Times (30/05/19) – Gov. Mills signs bill to expand abortion providers in Maine

In the state of Nevada, “self-induced abortion is punishable by up to 10 years in prison”. After a second review, lawmakers have just adopted a “reform that decriminalizes the over-the-counter sale of drugs causing miscarriage and ‘self-induced’ abortion”. Additionally, the text exempts physicians from explaining “‘the physical and emotional impact’ of an abortion on their patient” and from “revealing their age or marital status”.

The law must still be passed by the Senate in order to take effect, before being enacted by the Democratic Governor Steve Sisolak.

Meanwhile, in the state of Vermont — which has already decriminalized abortion — elected officials have introduced abortion as a “fundamental right” under the law. To prevent this law from being questioned by federal agencies, they added the ban “for any public entity to restrict it”. Republican Governor Phil Scott said Tuesday that he “would not oppose this text”.

Afp (22/05/2019)

In May 2017, Dr Leandro Rodrígues Lasta – an obstetrician-gynaecologist and head of a gynaecology department – received a 19-year-old woman in consultation “who was suffering from severe pain after taking misoprostol”, the first of the two pills for a medical abortion. Since the young woman was 23 weeks pregnant and her baby already weighed more than 510 grams, the doctor opted to stabilize the patient’s condition so that she could deliver by induction at 35 weeks. The child, who was adopted, has just turned two years old.

Judge Álvaro Meynet accused the gynaecologist of implementing a “delaying tactic” by not performing this abortion. He added that since Dr Rodrígues Lasta is not listed in the register of conscientious objectors, he had a legal obligation to perform this abortion. Abortion is legal in Argentina in rape cases and when the mother’s life or health is endangered.

Numerous processions and vigils were organised in support of Dr Leandro Rodrígues Lasta, who announced that he would appeal against the decision.

Aleteia, Zelda Caldwell (23/05/2019) –  Argentine OB-GYN found guilty for refusing to perform abortion

The Alabama Senate voted Tuesday in favour of a bill that would make abortion a crime in Alabama. The only exceptions would be cases of non-viability of the foetus and/or when the health and life of the mother is at risk.

Already adopted by lawmakers on 30 April last (see U.S.: Alabama criminalizes abortion), the text provides for prison sentences for doctors who secretly practice abortions, up to and including life imprisonment. The text is now ready to be signed by Kay Ivy, Governor of Alabama.

The ACLU[1] has already announced that it will take legal action to prevent the application of the law. Supporters of the law hope that this legal action will advance to the United States Supreme Court, now composed mainly of conservative judges. In 1973, the Roe v.  Wade decision taken by the Supreme Court of the United States authorized abortion in the U.S.

Will Ainsworth, President of the Alabama Senate, welcomed this text as “a major step in defending the rights of unborn children”, because “Roe must be fought and I am proud that Alabama is leading the way”, he added.

Update on 16/05/2019: the Governor of Alabama, Ms Kay Ivy, signed the law the following day, on 15 May. The law is therefore approved and will take effect in six months. Tin addition to signing, the Governor made the following statement: “this bill is a powerful testimony to the deep conviction of Alabamians that every life is precious and that every life is a sacred gift from God.

[1] ACLU: American Civil Liberties Union.

AFP (15/05/2019) – Avortement: le Sénat d’Alabama vote la loi la plus répressive des Etats-Unis

Reuters, Steve Gorman & Daniel Trotta (15/05/2019) – Alabama governor signs strictest U.S. abortion ban into law

Mexico has just legalized abortion if the mother’s health is at risk. The Mexican Supreme Court of Justice (SCJN) ruled Wednesday that women will now be able to receive a legal abortion if the pregnancy poses a risk to the mother’s health. Until now, the two exceptions decriminalizing abortion were instances of rape or the risk of the mother’s death, as clearly defined in articles 333 and 334 of the Federal Penal Code.

The SCJN’s decision was made analysing the case of Marisa, a 40-year-old woman who was refused an abortion by doctors at the Centro Nacional 20 de Noviembre, in Mexico. She wanted to have an abortion because of the risk of developing diabetes, thromboembolism, and pre-eclampsia during the pregnancy. The doctors justified their refusal by citing the criminal code, which allowed abortion only in cases where there was a risk of death.

The woman filed an injunction with the SCJN, which ruled in her favour on Wednesday: “it has been determined that the provisions of the General Health Act may allow access to abortion services for medical reasons. This is why the conditions of the right to health were not met at the time of the refusal”. The Court stated that by refusing the abortion, doctors “increased the risk of her health deteriorating”, representing an act of “discrimination” since only women can have access to this type of intervention “which violates their right to the highest possible level of health and well-being”.

For further reading:

Mexican Supreme Court decision: abortion will not be decriminalised

Telesur (15/05/2019) – México aprueba el aborto legal en caso de riesgo a la salud

Photo : Pixabay/DR

At the end of April, a clandestine abortion network was dismantled in the city of Marrakech, in Morocco. Six of its members will be tried on 24 May, including two medical interns, a medical student and a pilot who was in charge of importing medicines from Spain. The clandestine abortions were performed in a Marrakech apartment, with each women charged 3,000 dirhams, i.e. about €280, for an abortion. The defendants are being prosecuted for illegally practising abortion and illegally importing medicines.

Pro-abortion pressures have increased in Morocco in recent years, but the practice remains prohibited. It is punishable by 6 months to 2 years imprisonment for women and 1 to 5 years for abortion practitioners.

AFP (14/05/2019)

A new survey by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York revealed a “basic gap in fertility knowledge for many US women”. The study, which was conducted with 1,000 American women ages 20 to 45, found that only 20% of women know that they are only fertile for three to six days during their cycle. Only 14% of them could accurately describe a menstrual cycle, and only 27% of them managed to guess what days they were most fertile.

The experts, who presented the studies at the annual meeting of the American College of Gynecology in Nashville, highlight America’s gaping gap in fertility knowledge, which is providing fertile ground for egg-freezing and IVF clinics to do business.

For further reading:
Women in their forties exploited by the UK’s reproductive business

Daily mail, Mia de Graaf (3/05/2019) – Only 20% of American women know when they are most fertile, study finds – and experts warn the booming egg-freezing industry is capitalizing on their naivete

A new American state has adopted the Heartbeat bill, a law that prohibits abortion once a foetal heartbeat can be detected, usually around six weeks of pregnancy. The law will come into effect January 2020 (see Abortion: the “heartbeat bill” passed in Georgia).

Brian Kemp, the Governor of Georgia, signed the law “to ensure that all Georgians have the opportunity to live, grow, learn, and prosper”, adding that “Georgia is a state that values life” and that he must therefore “stand up for those who are unable to speak for themselves”.

The law will probably be challenged by its opponents in court, as in the other states before Georgia – Mississippi, Kentucky and Ohio – “but our job is to do what is right, not what is easy. We will not back down. We will always continue to fight for life”, replied the Governor.

For further reading:

• Abortion: the “Heartbeat bill” adopted by Mississippi Lawmakers
• Heartbeat bill: Kentucky’s turn to vote

Aleteia, J-P Mauro (08/05/2019) – Georgia governor signs “Heartbeat Bill,” restricts abortions past 6 weeks

Since abortion was decriminalized in Ireland on 2 January 2019, the Health Service Executive’s (HSE) My Options helpline has received 6,000 calls. Of the 317 Irish general practitioners willing to perform abortions, 169 agreed to have their contact details shared on the My Options website. The others can be accessed when a person contacts the helpline, who is referred to the nearest GP performing abortions.

Dr Short, who has a practice in Blackrock, Dublin, said that women who use her abortion services are mostly “women in their thirties whose contraception has failed” and others who “already have a family but who may think it isn’t the right time to have another child, or who are facing other problems, such as the health of their other children“.

In some counties, there are no doctors performing abortions and hospitals do not provide abortion services.

The number of abortions performed in Ireland since 2 January will not be available until the end of the year.

Irish Examiner, Joyce Fegan (5/05/2019) – Ireland: 6,000 crisis pregnancy calls since abortion legalised

Following a petition signed by 82,000 Dutch people, a law now allows parents who so wish to do so to apply for their stillborn child to be registered as a legal person in the government’s official databases. A woman asked for Yara, the child she had carried for fourteen weeks before having an abortion in an Amsterdam clinic, to be registered. Since the legislation does not specify the cause of death or the duration of the pregnancy as criteria for registration, officials at Amsterdam City Council accepted this request and sent their condolences to Yara’s mother.

“For all the mothers who will make use of this new law, it is obviously more than a mere formality,” said Don Ceder, a young Dutch lawyer. “It is obvious to any rational observer that these children cannot be both valuable persons and killable clumps of cells at the same time”. Kees van Helden, of the Dutch pro-life organization Cry for Life, confirmed that “for a lot of women, this addition to the law is a step forward in the process of dealing with post-abortion grief. We hope it will accelerate into a much broader public debate so that more people can become aware of what happens during an abortion,” he added.

One of Us (26/04/2019)

Last Friday, the highest court in Kansas deduced a “right to abortion” from the State Constitution According to the court, the “equal and inalienable rights” proclaimed in the Bill of Rights of the Kansas Constitution imply a “natural right of personal autonomy”. According to the court, this includes the right to “control one’s own body” and to decide whether or not to continue a pregnancy. Based on this right to abortion, it blocked the 2015 law prohibiting abortion after the second trimester of pregnancy (see Kansas bans abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy).

Washington Times, John Hanna (26/04/2019)

Alabama’s House of Representatives voted 74 to 3 on Tuesday to pass a bill that would make abortion a Class A felony, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 99 years. Attempted abortion would become a Class C felony, which holds a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. All Republicans voted in favour, except two who abstained. Nearly all Democratic House members chose not to vote, walking out of the House chamber in protest.

The bill’s stated objective is to challenge the Supreme Court’s decision that has allowed abortion in the United States since 1973: The measure would provide “a vehicle to revisit the constitutionally-flawed Roe v. Wade decision”, explains Terri Collins, the bill’s sponsor.

The two Democratic amendments, which were rejected, proposed to add an exception for rape and incest, and to fund the legal costs generated by this bill with the personal salaries of the members who voted in favour.

The law will now be move to the Senate, where Republicans also hold a majority.

Meanwhile, the US Supreme Court just upheld the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s 2017 decision regarding the time limits for medical abortion: Oklahoma was the last US state to ban the use of abortion pills beyond 49 days of pregnancy, whereas the latest FDA protocols recommend it up to 70 days. The Supreme Court ruled that this law encourages women to resort to surgical abortions, which would represent an “undue burden on women’s rights”.

CNN, Veronica Stracqualursi (01/05/2019)

Washington Times, Tim Talley (30/04/2019)

Last Monday and Tuesday, North Carolina lawmakers and then the Senate passed a bill requiring doctors and nurses to treat babies born alive after a late-term abortion like any newborn, under penalty of criminal sanctions.

A spokesman for Democratic Governor Roy Cooper criticized the measure. This raises expectations that the Governor may veto the law. Republicans, speaking in favour of the measure, said it had nothing to do with abortion and was intended to protect newborn babies.

In Texas last week, a similar bill called The Texas Born Alive Protection Act, designed to  “strengthen the protections afforded to babies who survive abortion” , was approved by a vote 93 to 1 in the House of Representatives and 21 to 10 in the Senate.

Washington Times, Emery P. Dalesio (16/04/2019)

Texas Tribune, Arya Sundaram (16/04/2019)

There is a global shortfall of 23.1 million women, including 11.9 million in China and 10.6 million in India. In 2017 alone, 800,000 girls were aborted in China and 671,000 in India. Researchers from the United Nations, the University of Singapore and the University of Massachusetts in the USA jointly conducted a major demographic study examining the global sex ratio. The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, analysed data from censuses, surveys and registers of births, deaths and marriages in 202 countries, from 1950 to 2017. “Sex-selective abortion began to be available” in 1970. The study found that twelve countries have an unusually high proportion of men compared to women: China, India, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, South Korea, Hong Kong, Montenegro, Taiwan, Tunisia and Vietnam.

In China, the country where 51% of the shortfall in girls is concentrated, the sex ratio in 2005 increased to 118 male births per 100 female births. This is well above the natural ratio of 105 per 100, which is consistently found in other countries throughout the world. By 2017, this ratio had fallen slightly to 114 per 100, a downward trend that “remains to be confirmed” according to Fengqing Chao, one of the University of Singapore’s researchers. Since the end of the one-child policy, the desire for girls is rising slowly, but it will take several years to rebalance the ratio, especially “due to the shortage of women” currently at childbearing age.

In Georgia, South Korea and Hong Kong, the sex ratio at birth is returning to normal, but in India, where 41% of female abortions occur, the ratio is only dropping “slightly”.

The abortion of girls seems to have “become a way for large families not to miss out on male offspring,” the study concludes.

For further reading:

In India, a doctor fights against female foeticide by offering to deliver baby girls free of charge

New Scientist, Debora MacKenzie (16/04/2019)

ABC.es, Nuria Ramirez de Castro (17/04/2019)

Phys.org, Bob Yirka (16/04/2019)