Decriminalization Of Abortion Research Articles

Transformative reproductive futures in Northern Ireland.

A foundation of rights-based solidarity has fostered an environment of cooperation between LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) rights and reproductive justice in Northern Ireland (NI) following the introduction of equal marriage and the decriminalization of abortion in 2019. This article provides a grounded look at this reproductive justice organizing in NI as an example of transformative organizing for reproductive futures. The case study considers a conversation with two activists who have been central to this work. Emma Campbell coconvenor of Alliance for Choice and Danielle Roberts the coconvenor of Reclaim the Agenda and former Senior Policy and Development Officer of HERe NI. Reclaim the Agenda is a coalition of feminist, youth, LGBTQ+ and community organizations that connects and mobilizes women to promote feminist activism through education, campaigning and celebration. HERe NI is a community organization and registered charity based in Belfast that supports lesbian and bisexual women and their families across NI. Alliance for Choice campaigns for free, safe legal and local abortion access for everyone who needs it in NI. Together these groups approach reproductive justice using a framework informed by lesbian feminist organizing and an intersectional approach that views access to abortion as part of a broader understanding of gender justice inspired by Black-women led SisterSong through (1) cross-movement organizing (2) centering bodily autonomy and (3) trans affirming feminist approaches to navigating shifting language about gender. The case study will be of interest to those working provide abortion services in a queer-informed way, as well as those navigating the challenges of reforming abortion policy.

First-trimester medication abortion via telemedicine: a retrospective cohort study

BackgroundFollowing the decriminalization of abortion in Colombia and amidst a global health crisis due to COVID-19, Profamilia implemented a telemedicine-assisted first-trimester Medication Abortion (MAB) program. This is an opportunity to reduce inequalities in access and to promote empowerment and sexual and reproductive rights. This study aims to describe socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of users and to assess its effectiveness and safety. Study designA retrospective cohort study. MethodsThe study analyzed data from users who received Profamilia's telemedicine abortion services between August 2021 and August 2022 (n=3,073). A descriptive analysis of their sociodemographic and clinical characteristics was performed, grouping, and comparing them according to follow-up status and abortion outcome. Effectiveness was assessed by the percentage of complete abortions without surgical intervention, and safety by the incidence of complications, potential adverse events, and potentially dangerous signs. ResultsMost of the users were less than 8 weeks gestation at the start of treatment (88.3%), from low socioeconomic strata (84.8%), affiliated to the subsidized healthcare system (87.6%), with educational levels up to secondary school (81.6%), between 18 and 35 years (87.4%), from urban areas (97.8%) and singles (90,8%). 94.9% of users had a complete abortion using medication, and 0.3% of cases reported complications. ConclusionsFirst-trimester MAB through telemedicine in the Latin American context is an effective and safe choice. Telehealth is an important strategy to expand access to safe abortion care, especially for those with limited financial means or educational backgrounds. Rural and marginalized populations need more attention to improve access.

Invisible chain: breaking the taboo of abortion in Jeanne Caruchet’s L’Ensemencée (1904), Annie Ernaux’s L’événement (2000) and Audrey Diwan’s L’événement (2021)

ABSTRACT In L’Événement (2000), the author’s retelling of her experience of an illicit abortion in 1964, Annie Ernaux writes of a ‘chaîne invisible où se côtoient des artistes, des écrivaines, des héroïnes de roman’, stating that ‘[s]on histoire est en elles’. There is a timelessness to Ernaux’s abortion narrative, jumping between two temporal spaces: the contemporary narrator’s experience of writing the novel at the turn of the millennium, and that of the young Annie in the 1960s. Twenty-one years after the novel’s publication, Audrey Diwan’s film adaptation of the same name became another link on this chain, further highlighting the relevance of the story of a young woman’s illicit abortion almost 50 years after the decriminalisation of abortion in France. This article extends Ernaux’s ‘chaîne’ further back in time, by adding another female-authored novel: L’Ensemencée (1904), by Jeanne Caruchet. The author explores how these women’s experiences of abortion are presented across these three works, examining the change in attitudes towards abortion, with particular focus on the evolution of female communities, from the Belle Époque, through the turn of the millennium and into the early 2020s.

Abortion, decriminalisation and the medico-legal paradigm

The medico-legal paradigm enmeshes legal with medical power, making abortion lawfully available only under the supervision of medical professionals. This article examines the recent parliamentary debates over abortion decriminalisation in New South Wales, Australia's most populous state, to argue that the decriminalisation of abortion in Australia represents a continuance with, rather than a break from, the medico-legal paradigm. The medical power embedded in laws that criminalised abortion in the nineteenth century, and liberalised abortion in the twentieth century, was not the same as that imagined by parliamentarians debating decriminalising abortion in the twenty-first century. Norms constituting abortion seekers and their doctors have shifted significantly. Nevertheless, the medico-legal paradigm continues to govern how lawful abortion is imagined. The medico-legal paradigm converts abortion seekers' desires for abortion into a need for healthcare and imagines the autonomy and agency of abortion seekers as enabled only through their subjection to medical power. This conversion, I suggest, dampens the potential abortion holds to open up and challenge norms of gender, sexuality and reproduction.

Abortion, criminal law, and transgression

This article challenges the boundaries and binaries that legal frameworks, which attempt to exceptionalise abortion, create for the spectrum of reproductive experience. Specifically, this paper articulates the extent to which the meaning of abortion is contested in a number of ways, to the extent to which it could be argued that it does not hold a fixed understanding, and the ramifications this has for the operation of law in this area. Any legal framework which attempts to exceptionalise abortion is bound to transgress a range of experiences and impact the provision and accessibility of care in a range of ways. Building on the theme of this Special Issue, ‘transgression’, the article shows the instability and transgressive potential of law in the regulation of miscarriage, abortion, and stillbirth. Miscarriage, abortion, and stillbirth exist on a spectrum of experience and may engage a range of clinical encounters that are not straightforwardly distinguished from each other. The paper contributes to the scholarship calling for the decriminalization of abortion and does so by highlighting often overlooked aspects of the impacts and unworkability of criminal exceptionalisation. The claim being made in this paper is twofold: first, abortion involves a number of features which are problematic within an exceptionalist framework. This leads to the second claim which is that any exceptionalist abortion frameworks will by definition encroach on and negatively impact experiences of reproductive loss in myriad ways.

Abortion Anarchy? The Case for Abortion Decriminalization

Abortion Anarchy? The Case for Abortion Decriminalization

낙태죄 비범죄화 이후

Access to safe abortion is a key aspect of sexual and reproductive rights. However, even after the decriminalization of abortion in 2021, abortion care has not been normalized in South Korea. This study analyzes the current state of medical assistance and access to abortion after decriminalization, with a focus on abortion due to sexual violence, keeping in mind that abortion, even before decriminalization, was not punished and it was included in the government’s medical expenses subsidy. In-depth interviews with sexual violence victim support workers and healthcare providers revealed that while decriminalization has improved access to care and information, many interviewees did not see any significant changes in medical support for abortion for sexual violence victims. Both support organizations and providers often felt that “abortion has not been legal yet” and as a result, they felt that they were under pressure to make sure that a pregnancy was the result of sexual violence in order to justify providing assistance to victims. As a result they tend to impose strict requirements on victims for providing medical assistance for them. In some cases, support organizations required a complaint of sexual violence, DNA matching of the perpetrator and the fetus, a case conference decision by an external advisor, or parental consent for adolescent victims as prerequisites for medical assistance, which made it impossible for victims to receive assistance. In addition, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family’s guidelines discourage supporting organizations to apply for assistance as the guidelines stress the possibility of being accused of false accusation and redeeming of support money. It was also pointed out that the guidelines do not specify whether to support medical expenses for pregnancies resulting from prostitution, so the possibility of support is ambiguous. The most difficult thing with regard to supporting abortion was to find a medical professional who would provide medical care ad abortion to victims. Despite being a victim of sexual violence, women were frequently rejected by healthcare providers and were not officially provided with information on which hospitals could provide abortion care. The experiences of being rejected by medical professionals or support organizations in itself caused worse stigma and pain of abortion for victims. Even at hardly found hospitals, it was often the case that hospitals refuse abortion operation expenses be covered by medical insurance and charged high fees while abortions were mostly performed surgically. Parental consent was required for all processes of investigation and medical assistance, leading adolescent victims to abandon their requests for assistance because they were unable to inform their guardians about their problems. There were also challenges in ensuring the right to self-determination for victims with developmental disabilities. Secondary victimization has been found occurred during the medical assistance, investigation, and victim assistance processes. Post-abortion support for contraception was limited, and counseling and follow-up support were scarce. Since the decriminalization of abortion, amendments to the abortion law were submitted to the National Assembly which maintain the punishment of abortion but limiting them based on respective of reasons. The Ministry of Women and Family Affairs’ policy regarding abortion is that it will only fund abortions in some cases of sexual violence. However, the results of the in-depth interviews show that no support for abortion is possible while criminalizing or stigmatizing it in principle. Given the above-mentioned interview results, this study recommends the measures to ensure the right to abortion for sexual violence victims.

Decriminalization of Abortion in the era of COVID-19

Reproductive health policies, focused on the decriminalization of abortion, have effects on the beliefs, attitudes, intentions and behaviors of termination of pregnancy. As women get older, more educated and more income, they rationally choose an abortion, but they move away from the ideal age for procreation of 22 years. The objective of the present work is to establish the exploratory factor structure of scales that measure four factors and 28 indicators (seven for each factor) related to the termination of pregnancy. Consequently, a non-experimental, cross-sectional and exploratory study was carried out with a non-probabilistic selection of 100 students. From a structural model the intentions determined the behaviors, but the factor solution was explained by beliefs. However, the context, sample selection, and type of analysis precludes generalizing the data to other settings. It is recommended to carry out a confirmatory factor analysis with a probabilistic selection of the sample in the local population.

Striving towardsafe abortion services in Nepal: A review of barriers and facilitators.

Despite the decriminalization of abortion in Nepal in 2002, unsafe abortion is still a significant contributor to maternal morbidity and mortality. Nepal has witnessed a significant drop in abortion-related severe complications and maternal deaths owing to the legalization of abortion laws, lowered financial costs, and wider accessibility of safe abortion services (SAS). However, various factors such as sociocultural beliefs, financial constraints, geographical difficulties, and stigma act as barriers to the liberal accessibility of SAS. This review aimed to determine key barriers obstructing women's access to lawful, safe abortion care and identify facilitators that have improved access to and quality of abortion services. A systematic search strategy utilizing the databases PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, and Embase was used to include studies on the accessibility and safety of abortion services in Nepal. Data were extracted from included studies through close reading. Barriers and facilitators were then categorized into various themes and analyzed. Of 223 studies, 112 were duplicates, 73 did not meet the inclusion criteria, and 18 did not align with the research question; thus, 20 studies were included in the review. Various barriers to SAS in Nepal were categorized as economic, geographic, societal, legal/policy, socio-cultural, health systems, and other factors. Facilitators improving access were categorized as economic/geographic/societal, legal/policy, socio-cultural, and health systems factors. The patterns and trends of barriers and facilitators were analyzed, grouping them under legal/policy, socio-cultural, geographic/accessibility, and health systems factors. The review identifies financial constraints, unfavorable geography, lack of infrastructure, and social stigmatization as major barriers to SAS. Economics and geography, legalization, improved access, reduced cost and active involvement of auxiliary nurse-midwives and community health volunteers are key facilitators.

Domestication of the Maputo Protocol in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Leveraging regional human rights commitments for abortion decriminalization and access.

The Maputo Protocol, adopted over 20 years ago, is a promising regional treaty for advancing gender equity and sexual and reproductive health and rights. This instrument has driven progress in women's health and rights across Africa, with much remaining to achieve to realize its full potential for women and girls, including access to safe abortion. The present paper shares the strategies and lessons from the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) reform centered on the domestication of the Protocol, specifically applying its commitments on abortion decriminalization and access. With a vision of addressing maternal mortality and rectifying the impacts of widespread sexual violence against women during war, abortion as a human right and health imperative was at the heart of the DRC's reform. Governmental commitment, broad coalition building, evidence generation, and an intersectional advocacy agenda were critical to overcoming opposition, stigma, and other challenges. This paper shares key learnings from the DRC's complex yet collaborative reform strategies and its processes. The strategy prioritized domestication of the Protocol for numerous reforms, including paving the path to legal abortion on the broad grounds of rape or incest, and saving women's health and/or life. With a commitment to maximizing quality, access, task sharing, and equity, progressive national comprehensive abortion guidelines were created alongside an implementation roadmap for accountability. The DRC's experience leveraging the Maputo Protocol's obligations to advance abortion rights and access offers valuable insights for consideration globally.

Decriminalization of Abortion by the Mexican Supreme Court

Decriminalization of Abortion by the Mexican Supreme Court

Discourse on decriminalization of abortion—ideologically motivated or legally indicated?

Discourse on decriminalization of abortion—ideologically motivated or legally indicated?

R v Foster: Exemplifying the urgency of the decriminalisation of abortion.

R v Foster: Exemplifying the urgency of the decriminalisation of abortion.

Safe abortion in Latin America: a look at abortion accompaniment collectives from the perspective of their activists

Over the last decade, activists in Latin America have expanded access to safe abortion through processes of accompaniment. Abortion accompaniment is characterised by activism and community-based strategies to facilitate access to, and safe use of, medication abortion, mainly outside clinical contexts. Drawing on findings from a survey of 515 activists who were part of Accompaniment Collectives in Latin America, this study describes the organisation of these collectives, barriers and facilitators to their activism, and how accompaniers perceive the impact and future of abortion accompaniment. Accompaniment Collectives are organised and flexible and operate in diverse social and legal contexts. The main goals of accompaniment are the normalisation and social decriminalisation of abortion culturally (84%); the social construction of autonomy (79%); and the protection of people’s freedom (73%), life (71%) and health (67%). Activists in legally restrictive settings identified limited access to abortion medication (73%) and restrictive laws (71%) as the main barriers to accompaniment, while health care personnel objecting to abortion provision on grounds of conscience was most common in legally permissive settings (64%). Collectives have developed strategies to overcome such barriers to and expanding access to abortion care. Activists expect accompaniment to continue regardless of the legal status of abortion.

Lying in the age of artificial intelligence: A call to moral and legal responsibility

In Western culture, perceptions and emotions have often prevailed over truth and reality, trivializing the act of lying and undermining trust between individuals and institutions. Today, freedom of expression and the right of citizens to freely form their own opinions—based on facts and not falsehoods—are sometimes threatened by the impunity with which lying is allowed in public debate, even in societies that consider themselves democratic. Lying, especially when practiced by public representatives, can cause serious social harm, and we believe that globalization calls for a higher common standard of respect for the truth. Along with the reflections of historical authors on the subject, in this essay we analyze two cases as examples: the false statistics used to achieve the decriminalization of abortion in democratic countries, and the lies of the Chinese authorities during the Covid-19 pandemic in one of today’s leading totalitarian states. We believe that these behaviors should not go unpunished, and therefore we propose to insert new criminal offenses in national and international criminal law, especially for those in public office and media professionals. Our objective is to preserve and promote truthfulness in our societies in order to foster trust and peaceful coexistence among free and equal people.

Abortion care availability, readiness, and access: linking population and health facility data in Kinshasa and Kongo Central, DRC

BackgroundThe Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) legalized abortion in 2018 to preserve health and pledged to provide quality postabortion care (PAC), yet little is known about the availability of abortion care services and if facilities are prepared to provide them; even less is known about the accessibility of these services. Using facility and population-based data in Kinshasa and Kongo Central, this study examined the availability of abortion services, readiness of facilities to provide them, and inequities in access.MethodsData on 153 facilities from the 2017–2018 DRC Demographic and Health Survey Service Provision Assessment (SPA) were used to examine signal functions and readiness of facilities to provide services across three abortion care domains (termination of pregnancy, basic treatment of abortion complications, and comprehensive treatment of abortion complications). To examine PAC and medication abortion provision before and after abortion decriminalization, we compared estimates from the 2017–2018 SPA facilities to estimates from the Performance Monitoring for Action (PMA) data collected in 2021 (n = 388). Lastly, we assessed proximity to PAC and medication abortion using PMA by geospatially linking facilities to representative samples of 2,326 and 1,856 women in Kinshasa and Kongo Central, respectively.ResultsFew facilities had all the signal functions under each abortion care domain, but most facilities had many of the signal functions: overall readiness scores were > 60% for each domain. In general, readiness was higher among referral facilities compared to primary facilities. The main barriers to facility readiness were stock shortages of misoprostol, injectable antibiotics, and contraception. Overall, provision of services was higher post-decriminalization. Access to facilities providing PAC and medication abortion was almost universal in urban Kinshasa, but patterns in rural Kongo Central showed a positive association with education attainment and wealth.ConclusionMost facilities had many of the necessary signal functions to provide abortion services, but the majority experienced challenges with commodity availability. Inequities in accessibility of services also existed. Interventions that address supply chain challenges may improve facility readiness to provide abortion care services, and further efforts are needed to narrow the gap in accessibility, especially among poor women from rural settings.

(364) Abortion: Genesis of an Authoritan Shift in 2022

Abstract Introduction Access to abortion is questioned in the USA. The abortion debate crystallizes in the form of a confrontation between pro and anti clans. Is it possible to get away from this rhetoric and consider that the question of abortion is that of access to care? Abortion is a social fact described since Antiquity, for this reason, States have the duty to accompany applicants. Reducing the abortion debate to the dialectic of for or against is the linguistic maneuver generating emotional activation opposing human rights. Can scientific research be an explanatory factor for social constructions relating to abortion? Our study proposes to put into perspective the end of the decriminalization of abortion with gender asymmetry in scientific analysis in reproductive health, in particular concerning induced abortion. Objective to consider abortion as a social fact to put into perspective the abortion's right and the inequality of research according to gender Methods we conducted a literature review from 07/2021 to 06/2022 with the keywords men and abortion and women and abortion introduced on Pub Med: 86 articles are referenced for men, 10 of which are relevant. 1698 references for women of which 1310 are relevant. The criterion of relevance is the reference to induced abortion. Results this literature review shows scientific research in reproductiv health concerning abortion overwhelmingly in favor of women. The scientific literature studying the man whose ephemeral partner or not is confronted with abortion constitutes less than 1% of research on abortion. Remember in this regard that the man and the woman each participate equally in fertilization Conclusions Conclusions: this work questions the imperativ of an egalitarian scientific treatment for genders in reproductiv health and particularly on abortion. Gender iinequalities in scientific research could perform heteronormativ frameworks, generating power relations and discrimination in the construction of symbolic and social representations. This dynamic of socio-scientific inequalities crystallizes in the field of law, assigning the most vulnerable to situation that violates human rights The asymmetry of gender, namely the social domination of men versus the reproductiv power of women, has a strong impact on the developpement of frameworks for the scientific analysis of fertility and sexuality: the place of men, central to sexual health, with HIV, is on the contrary marginalized in reproductiv health, excluding the man from almost the entire reproductiv mechanism. Birth control has existed since ancient times, by this means, people match societies with the limited resources of the environment in order to create a sustainable world for all living species including the human species. The logic, the contraceptive techniques sometimes fail: forcing a person to have a pregnancy, which is physically, psychologically and socially constraining, which involves risks in particular for overall health, is a serious attack on the democratic principles guaranteeing people's freedom Disclosure No

Free and responsible: Sexuality, pastoral, and the art of governance in Catholic Conjugal Centres (1953–1990)

This article deals with a socio-historical enigma: the articulation of family planning – through dedicated centres – and catholicism. How come self-identified catholics ended up defending contraception and decriminalisation of abortion while the Catholic Church kept reminding that sexuality should be conjugal and reproductive? The article examines the process of creating a discursive and practical normativity allowing the use of contraception and abortion through a catholic ‘tool’, that is, the pastoral power at a time of secularisation. Borrowing the concept developed by Michel Foucault enables highlighting the ‘catholic governmentality’ regarding contraception and abortion, namely, the ‘responsible-freedom’.

Patrick McDonagh. Gay and Lesbian Activism in the Republic of Ireland, 1973–93.

The Republic of Ireland has witnessed vast social reforms in the twenty-first century, including decriminalization of abortion, the extension of civil marriage to same-sex couples, and a reformation of divorce legislation. For perhaps the first time in the history of the Irish State, the country has shed its conservative Catholic image to become a leader in civil rights. Recent histories of modern Ireland have begun to document the root of activist movements that have led to such social reforms, including now Gay and Lesbian Activism in the Republic of Ireland, 1973–93 by Patrick McDonagh. Prior to this publication, historical accounts of gay and lesbian activism in Ireland preceding the decriminalization of male homosexual activity in 1993 were sadly lacking. Yet the records of individuals and organizations were readily available for public consultation. In 2007, Senator David Norris, an Irish civil rights campaigner and a central figure in the decriminalization bill, donated his personal archive to the National Library of Ireland. The following year the National LGBT Federation made the pertinent decision to donate the Irish Queer Archive (Cartlann Aerach na hÉireann), also to the National Library of Ireland. That collection of material is vast, including the records of many central LGBT organizations and the personal papers of gay rights activists in Ireland. McDonagh is perhaps the first historian to fully use these manuscript collections, and the result is a detailed and engaging account of the gay rights movement in Ireland. McDonagh has also incorporated oral interviews to great effect, including interviews taken specifically for this research as well as accessing the records of Edmund Lynch, who has been conducting interviews with Irish LGBT individuals since 2013.

Later Gestational Age Abortion in Canada: A Scoping Review

Since the decriminalization of abortion in Canada in 1988, there have been no legal restrictions on when in pregnancy an abortion can take place. However, abortion care is only consistently available in Canada up to 23 weeks and 6 days; women, transgender men, and gender non-binary individuals who need abortion care after 24 weeks typically obtain services in the United States. Furthermore, abortion care beyond 16 weeks is unavailable in some regions of the country. The authors undertook this scoping review to explore what is currently known about later gestational age abortion in Canada. Using a six-stage framework, they identified 32 relevant sources that were published in the last 30 years, and they consulted with seven topic experts to validate the findings from our document synthesis. The limited body of literature on abortion after 16 weeks in Canada sheds light on the safety of both medical and instrumentation procedures, the type and training of abortion-providing clinicians, the characteristics of those obtaining abortion care after the first trimester, and geographic disparities in service availability. These topic experts emphasized the need for future research on patient experiences and developing and implementing strategies to help provinces and territories expand abortion care to later gestational ages and improve comprehensive reproductive health services.