Safe and Legal Abortions are Under Attack in Italy’s Region of Molise
As of January 2022, the Italian region of Molise employs only one doctor who does not identify as a “conscientious objector.” In this context, the term refers to someone who refuses to perform abortions on the grounds of moral, personal or religious beliefs, and simply put, this means that women in Molise are currently being…
Menstruation Equity: We Can Do Better
The term ‘Menstrual Equity’ is used to describe menstruation as a driver of social and economic inequality resulting from staggering menstruation poverty, taboos, and stigma associated with menstruation. Period Poverty and Stigma: Hundreds of millions of girls and women across the world do not have access to hygienic sanitary products, clean and private toilets or clean…
The United Kingdom’s Decision to Cut Foreign Aid is having Catastrophic Effects on Women’s Reproductive Rights and Sexual Health.
The continued cut to foreign aid from the UK government has proved to be catastrophic for many countries in crisis and the NGOs providing support to them. Yemen, often considered the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, has had international aid from the UK violently cut by more than 60%. This has pushed more than 100 UK Charities…
Decriminalization of Abortion in Mexico Might have a Ripple Effect Across Latin America and Beyond
On September 7, 2021, the Supreme Court of Mexico in a historic decision, has unanimously ruled that abortion is no longer a crime in Mexico, setting an important precedent across the whole country and possibly across Latin America. Describing the decision as “a watershed in the history of the rights of all women, especially the…
Texas Abortion Law: Women’s Rights Are Under Attack, Again
Forty-eight years after Roe v. Wade, which enshrined into law a woman’s right to get an abortion, the same right of terminating a pregnancy is still argued by politicians across the United States. With the strictest abortion law in the country (S.B.8) signed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in May and into effect since September, and…
Women’s Access to Reproductive Rights and Climate Change: The Butterfly Effect
When we think about climate change and women’s rights, most people have these things on completely different levels. Environmental issues are immediately associated with factories, deforestation, carbon emission, animal farming, while women’s rights are connected with access to education, reproductive choice, protection of women’s health and equality. But, if you think deeply, Women’s access to…
Women’s Rights in Poland: It Is Not Just the Reproductive Issues
The reproductive rights of women in Poland have become a widely discussed topic in recent months. The protests, which were motivated by the fact that the Constitutional Court of Poland made a decision that effectively bans abortion in the country, have appeared in the news of many leading news outlets. According to the Polish Ministry of…
The Outlaw Of The Virginity Test In Pakistan: A (Partial) Victory
In January, the Punjabi region of Pakistan outlaws the virginity test for rape survivors. Excluding the virginity test from criminal investigations in cases of rape, it might pave the way for the ban nationwide. The achievement was possible thanks to the petition filed by journalists, activists, and academics, who stated its medical unreliability. The Lahore…
The State of Abortion Rights in Poland in 2020
Abortion has always been and continues to be a sensitive and delicate topic. The necessity to terminate a pregnancy vastly vary, but it is always associated with a lot of complex and deep emotions for women. In many cases, the restrictive laws and decisions made by the Governmental authorities related to a woman’s right to safe…
Can Women Exercise Their Rights of Legal and Safe Abortions During the Pandemic?
The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women states that: Acts such as forced sterilization, forced abortion, forced pregnancy, criminalization of abortion, denial or delay of safe abortion <…> could constitute forms of gender-based violence against women. Despite the fact that the sexual and reproductive rights of women have been one of the points on…
