A new study has found that abortion restrictions increase the risk of intimate partner violence for women of reproductive age. They looked at travel distances to care, and the farther the distance, the more that IPV risk increased.

Chile is headed to a tense presidential runoff after a first-round vote set up a showdown between a member of the Communist Party and an ultraconservative veteran politician who opposes same-sex marriage and abortion.

Despite abortion being legal in Thailand, many are denied access and are stigmatised while seeking services. Medical staff are often confused and unable to provide accurate information to insured patients.

“Women on Web stays open no matter what. Abortion is part of our lives and should be freely available to all.” Venny Ala-Siurua, ED of Women on Web.

A new twist in the saga of the US-purchased contraceptives intended for Africa and stuck in Belgium since the Trump admin scaled back foreign aid. An additional supply has been identified in another Belgian warehouse; an official said due to improper storage those products are largely unusable.

The aim of feminism is to dissolve patriarchy, not to replace it, says Isabelle Schmoetten in Luxembourg, in response to a male politician who claimed that feminism aims to “systematically discriminate against men”. Luxembourg granted women suffrage in 1919 and abortion was fully legalised in 2014.

Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi writes from Nigeria: "Restrictive or unclear [abortion] laws don’t save lives, they cost them. Every delay in reform translates to more women lost to preventable causes. The goal should not be punishment; it should be protection."

Madrid will not create a list of doctors who refuse to provide abortions, so doctors can still refuse on personal grounds without fear of being listed. Authorities assured that women will not face restrictions on access to medical care - but belief-based denial IS a restriction! A serious one.

In Brazil, healthcare professionals must report abortions to the police. This reporting has wide-ranging impacts on professional duties around confidentiality, autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, non-discrimination, and respect for human rights. It contradicts their ethical duties.

Scotland's abortion laws are "not fit for purpose" according to an expert group. Currently, abortion is only legal before 24 weeks when 2 doctors agree that certain grounds have been met. The report recommends dropping these grounds, with doctors' agreement only needed for abortions after 24 weeks.

Sharon Camp has died at age 81. She was a public policy expert and advocate for women’s reproductive health, known as the mother of Plan B, the emergency contraceptive pill. (archive.is/XSlcO)

An anti-abortion protester in South Carolina has been taken into custody after allegedly shooting someone in a parking lot outside a Columbia Planned Parenthood clinic.

The High Court in Malawi has ruled that adolescent survivors of sexual violence have the right to access abortion services in both public and private health facilities. The decision is the result of relentless advocacy by Ipas and partner organizations.

Many Russian regions have restricted abortion through local laws that ban the so-called “inducement to artificial termination of pregnancy.” As of mid-Nov, these laws are in force in at least 24 regions, the city of St. Petersburg and the annexed Crimean Peninsula. Also introduced in 6 more regions.

Nigeria: A study has revealed that unsafe abortions account for 37% of all pregnancy-related deaths among women in Lagos' slum communities, prompting urgent calls for government and community intervention. The study highlights deep-rooted socio-economic, cultural, and health system failures.

In Ethiopia, anti-abortion disinformation is influencing both public opinion and politics, putting the hard-won gains of the past two decades at risk. Advocates and medical professionals are once again starting to speak up, this time in defense of the law that allows some abortions.

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Poland violated the rights of a pregnant woman who had to travel abroad to obtain an abortion after her foetus was diagnosed with a birth defect. Her right to private and family life was violated.

South Australia: Anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe launched a bingo game about abortion to raise funds for a failed bill, and is now under investigation. One legislator said she was horrified that Howe was charging people to play a game about abortion. “She seems to always be on the grift.”

Thankfully, a bill in South Australia to restrict later abortions has been defeated. The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said that the bill was premised either on an ignorance of reality or a wilful misrepresentation of the facts.

Melanie Benesh: "Lawmakers should devote energy to strengthening our outdated wastewater laws and funding the agencies tasked with implementing them, instead of using those laws as cover for an anti-abortion agenda."

The new novel "What Friends Are For" sheds light on the history of abortion in Canada. Harriet Zaidman's book is a “nuanced, important, and unfortunately timely novel set in 1983 at the height of Canada’s abortion debate, following a young girl grappling with an unplanned pregnancy.”

Great that this cruel bill was voted down in South Australia. But the only reason the bill happened in the first place is because SA has an unecessary abortion law. That gives legislators a veto over medical decisions and anti-choice legislators will forever try to make the law more restrictive.

Medical experts have advocated for more awareness about the dangers of unsafe abortions among young people in Osun State in Nigeria. They made the call during a workshop to address unsafe abortion and the need for young people to have sexual education to prevent unplanned pregnancies.

Last week at the United Nations in Geneva, the US boycotted its human rights review that all U.N. member states participate in every 4.5 years. By evading its U.N. human rights review, America ignores what the world sees clearly: Texans suffering under abortion bans.

Medical support is great and sometimes necessary, but women have been contracepting and aborting without help from doctors for millennia.

Wisconsin mother Gracie Ladd tells her heartbreaking abortion story after getting a diagnosis that her much-wanted baby would not live. "There was so much nonsense just for a woman to get essential care."

Guttmacher Institute has issued recommendations to advance rights-based, patient-centered approaches to sexual and repro health care in the US. In a moment defined by entrenched inequities, rampant misinformation and political turbulence, the stakes for evidence-based policy have never been higher.

The recent suspension of a controversial abortion bill has sparked a wave of reactions from Nigerian women on social media, many of whom described the proposed legislation as a misplaced priority. The bill would have imposed a 10-year jail term for abortion-related offences.

“Progressive” anti-abortion activists claim to be a feminist wing of the movement. But when one of their former compatriots tried to end her pregnancy, they went to extreme lengths to stop her.

For decades, Medicaid has been central to contraceptive and reproductive health services for low-income people in the US. Massive cuts to Medicaid under the recent federal budget will strip away coverage and access to care from millions of people, with far-reaching and harmful consequences.

The Heritage Foundation, an American right-wing org that engineered Project 2025, is partnering with a constellation of European nationalist far-right movements to export its playbook for countering progressive policies into Europe. They're starting to make inroads.

This is from a religious site but good news. A city in Ukraine had initiated constitutional amendments to ban abortion in the country, but a local resident sued and the decision was annulled. The city council had no jurisdiction and was acting on a letter from the Catholic Archeparchy.

Human fetal tissue research has saved millions of lives and continues to drive biomedical innovation. Restricting it would not alter abortion rates, it would force scientists to discard an irreplaceable research resource for treating devastating diseases.

A new study has found that two-thirds of pharmacies in British Columbia (Canada) can provide the abortion pill within 3 days, but some people need to call several pharmacies to find the drug, especially in larger urban centres.

In Nigeria, 610,000 unsafe abortions are reportedly carried out annually. This leads to a high rate of maternal mortality. This won't be reduced by telling women not to have abortions! It must be decriminalized.

One year after the New Brunswick government (Canada) eliminated the last legal limit on access to surgical abortions, not much has changed. It's because the resources to start a freestanding clinic are significant, and the growing use of medication abortions has offset procedural abortion.

Women's rights groups welcomed an Oct decision by a Malawian court to allow safe abortions for women and girls subjected to sexual violence. "This judgment is a vindication for all of us who have been lobbying for proper services for those who go through defilement and rape," said Emma Kaliya.

Dr. Odofin James Taiye has called for concerted efforts to tackle maternal deaths across Nigeria, warning that hundreds of women still lose their lives daily to preventable causes linked to pregnancy and childbirth - including unsafe abortion.

Lawmakers on the European Parliament’s women’s rights committee voted Wed to back an EU fund that would help women travel abroad for abortions banned or restricted in their home countries. This is result of the My Voice, My Choice campaign that gathered over 1.1 million signatures.

A new report from Amnesty International finds that harmful and dangerous obstacles continue to undermine access to abortion care. This is in the context of increasingly well-resourced anti-rights groups ramping up their efforts to negatively influence policies and laws, via fear and misinformation.

The film Belén is a gripping true story of an Argeninian woman unjustly accused of illegal abortion. Belén is in UK and US cinemas from 7 November and on Prime Video from 14 November.

Despite growing legal threats to the accessibility of abortion pills in the US, national networks of volunteers are working to distribute the medication, discretely and without cost to patients.

In Latvia, some anti-choice politicians have called for the introduction of mandatory counselling for women needing an abortion. Over 10,000 signatures have been collected against the idea, allowing the initiative to be submitted to parliament.

Six decades ago, Lawrence Lader’s book "Abortion" launched a US movement. In the days before the internet connected people, his book served as a link joining activists, doctors, lawyers, clergy people, and others impacted by restrictive abortion laws, who felt deeply that those needed to change.

In Benin, Cameroon, Togo, Burkina Faso and Cote D’Ivoire, survivors of sexual violence have the right to safe abortion in theory. But Dutch researchers found laws that existed on paper were not being enforced.

Northern Ireland: An amendment to a new bill on baby loss certificates, which would add specific language to include women who have had abortions, has been defeated. Abortions are already covered in the broad language of the bill.

The Guttmacher Institute has unveiled two groundbreaking research initiatives with comprehensive evidence of the transformative impact of family planning on women’s lives. Investing in comprehensive SRH care delivers immediate life-saving benefits and economically empowers women.

In the UK, many high street clinics provide unregulated ultrasounds. Hospital specialists say they have seen cases of missed health problems, misdiagnosed conditions, and situations in which women were erroneously told their babies were malformed or had died, and they needed an abortion.

Shalom Tewobola: "The real conversation Nigeria needs goes deeper. It requires acknowledging that criminalizing abortion kills women. It means understanding that a pro-life policy that ignores maternal mortality is contradictory at its core."

A new multi-country initiative across Africa and Latin America has been launched to amplify the power of feminist and women-led civil society organizations. The MAREAS consortium brings together four organizations with decades of experience in reproductive health and rights.