ISSUES
: Abortion
Chapter 2: Abortion debate
24
That’s where the drones come in.
The third major route is through
medical abortion, or so-called
abortion pills. Foreign websites
such as the one run by Women
on Waves, and Women on Web,
offer assistance to women seeking
abortion. There is also a growing
unregulated market in abortion pills
on the Internet.
Not for everyone
Obtaining an abortion via all these
methods is contingent upon having
enough money to be able to pay
– which means poorer women are
more adversely affected by the
1993 law.
There is also considerable evidence
that access to abortion, even where
it is permissible, is very difficult to
obtain. To avoid falling foul of the
restrictive laws, doctors in Poland
routinely avoid or refuse to perform
abortion procedures. They often
insist on additional certificates,
referrals or letters of approval from
supervisors, or use the conscience
clause to refuse access.
This means that even women who
are legally eligible for abortions
still continue to use the abortion
underground, because obtaining an
abortion through the legal channels
is so difficult.
While women of childbearing age
who have the financial means to do
so continue to find ways to access
abortion, Polish society remains
polarised on the subject.
Initiatives such as the drone
missions are but the latest in a
long line of attempts to highlight
how unjust the system is in Poland,
and how the country continues to
violate women’s rights.
1 July 2015
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Trust (UK)
Zika emergency pushes
women to challenge
Brazil’s abortion law
Women’s groups are set to challenge the law in the hope of
making termination possible for women at risk of delivering
a baby born with Zika-related defects.
By Sarah Boseley
W
omen’s groups in Brazil
are set to challenge the
abortion laws this summer
in the hope of making a safe and legal
termination possible for women at risk
of delivering a baby born with defects
after exposure to the Zika virus.
“Women should be able to decide
and have the means to terminate
pregnancies because they are facing
serious risks of having babies with
microcephaly and also suffering
huge mental distress during their
pregnancies. They should not be
forced to carry on their pregnancies
under the circumstances,” said
Beatriz Galli, a lawyer on bioethics
and human rights who works for Ipas,
a group dedicated to ending unsafe
abortion.
Lawyers for the organisations will
present a legal challenge at the
supreme court in the first week of
August, when the court sits again
after the winter break. They are co-
ordinated by Anis Instituto de Bioética,
which campaigns for women’s
equality and reproductive rights.
The groups have obtained an opinion
from lawyers at Yale University in
the US, who argue that the Brazilian
government’s policies on Zika and
microcephalyhavebreachedwomen’s
human rights. The government “has
failed to enact adequate measures to
ensure that all women have access
to
comprehensive
reproductive
health information and options, as
required by Brazil’s public health and
human rights commitments”, says a
review from the Global Health Justice
Partnership, which is a joint initiative
of the Yale Law School and the Yale
School of Public Health.
It is also critical of Brazil’s handling
of the epidemic. Its “failure to ensure
adequate infrastructure, public health
resources and mosquito control
programmes in certain areas has
greatly exacerbated the Zika and
Zika-related microcephaly epidemics,
particularly among poor women of
racial minorities”, the review says.
As of 7 July, there have been 1,638
cases of reported microcephaly – an
abnormally small head – and other
brain defects in Brazil, according
to the World Health Organisation.
Women who do not want to continue
their pregnancy because they have
been infected, even if they have had
a scan confirming brain defects in
the baby, are unable to choose a
legal termination. There is evidence
of a rise in early abortions using
pills obtainable online and fears that
unsafe, illegal abortions will be rising
too.
Galli said there were already about
200,000 hospitalisations of women
who have undergone a clandestine
termination every year, and a
suspected 1 million illegal abortions
before the epidemic. “We know that
there are clinics operating in the very
low-income poor settings in Rio and
women are paying a lot of money and
are risking their lives,” she said.
