How do we free abortion?

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How do we free abortion?

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Bethany Rielly writes about how feminist movements are working to give abortion back to the people – and keep it there.

In a street in Barcelona’s Raval district there is a small hole in the front of a building. Over the door it says ‘Casa d’Infants Orfes’ (House of Orphaned Infants). From the Middle Ages to the 19th century, women put their newborn babies into the hole to deliver their child safely to the orphanage. And no-one knew the names of the mothers. At this time the social stigma of having an illegitimate child and serious poverty forced many women to give away their child in the middle of the night. Today in the US, conservatives want a modern-day ‘baby box’.

The ’baby boxes’ are drawers at police stations and fire stations. Mothers can put their babies in these boxes and no-one knows their names and they don’t need to be afraid of the law. They introduced the boxes in the 1990s to stop the most serious cases of abandoning children. The religious Right now wants more of these safe laws as an alternative to abortion.

In 2022, the US Supreme Court stopped the right to abortion. There are now serious restrictions in 41 states. In 14 of the states, abortion is illegal.

Because of this change we need to ask questions about abortion rights around the world to show that not everyone thinks abortion is accessible, safe, and free from stigma – even in countries where it’s been legal for many years. For example, in Japan doctors ask for proof of agreements from partners. In Britain two doctors need to agree to the abortion. The World Health Organization says abortion is a ‘simple and common healthcare procedure’, so why is it so complicated?

Bad laws

Many of the rules on legal abortion today make no sense for legal reasons or health reasons. Hazal Atay is a researcher on gender at Sciences Po Paris. She says, ‘You don’t find other healthcare services on a list of crimes.’ She says that today abortion is still a ‘fragile right’ because even in countries where it’s legal, people still see it as a crime, with some exceptions.

Hazal Atay speaks to me on Zoom from her home in Paris. There feminists have just celebrated after law-makers made abortion rights a part of the French Constitution. This is an important step but France is still not a safe place for abortion. Research shows that many French people travel abroad for abortions because the law in France puts the limit on abortion at 14 weeks.

Silvia De Zordo is a researcher at the University of Barcelona. She found that between 2017 and 2018, over 3,800 women travelled from European countries where abortion is legal. They travelled to Britain and the Netherlands. There abortion is legal after 12 weeks, the first trimester. Silvia De Zordo says there are many reasons why people might need abortions between 13 and 26 weeks, the second trimester. Many women don’t know they are pregnant until after the limit because there are no pregnancy symptoms, or there are irregular periods, or a wrong assessment by a doctor. She says these limits are harmful and delay care. Of course, there are financial and psychological problems with going abroad and this is more difficult and unfair for low-income people. But research shows that six per cent of mothers tried to end their pregnancy by hitting their abdomens or using medication not normally used to bring a miscarriage.

Silvia De Zordo says that there is no evidence for the limits to the first or second trimester. There are political reasons for different limits in different countries.

In 2022, the World Health Organisation gave new guidelines calling to remove medically unnecessary limits like criminalization, waiting times, agreement from partners or family, and time limits. It says these limits put women and girls at a greater risk of unsafe abortion, stigma, and health problems.

At the moment, Canada is the only country to have removed abortion from its criminal code. The harm of criminalising abortion came up in Britain in 2022. Then a mother went to prison for taking abortion pills after the legal limit. She was charged under a law from 1861. There were national protests and as a result there was a vote in Parliament earlier in 2024 to decriminalise abortion. In Britain and around the world, many abortion laws do not work and when it comes to freeing abortion, a change in the law is only half of the problem.

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A woman plays the cello in the middle of riot police at a protest for safe and legal abortion in Mexico City, on 28 September 2023. Earlier that month Mexico's Supreme Court decriminalized abortion. RAQUEL CUNYA/ REUTERS

Revolutionary pills

Many supporters of abortion also call for abortion not to be medical. They say that doctors create problems and stigma. Abortion pills make this a possibility. The drugs misoprostol and mifepristone mostly now replace illegal abortions. The growth of medication abortion is now linked to a global reduction in annual deaths from unsafe abortion, from around 115,000 to 204,000 women thirty years ago to around 39,000 today.

This forced researchers to think again about the relationship between safety and care in clinics. Today the World Health Organisation guidelines say that people can safely and effectively manage their own abortions with pills for up to 12 weeks.

Many prefer using the abortion pills themselves. Then they don’t need to pay for travel costs, take time off work, or find child care.

Kinga Jelińska is an activist of the Polish group Abortion Dream Team. She asks why we can’t buy medication proved to be safer than paracetamol in pharmacies. ‘It’s like we have a very fast broadband but we’re still using telegrams,’ she says.

In France, the US, and Britain they posted abortion pills to women to take at home during the pandemic. This idea follows the work of feminist activist groups like Women on Web. For 20 years, Women on Web has sent abortion pills to people in countries where abortions are restricted. Hazel Atay says, ‘Women on Web were the first to say, “If it’s just a pill, why not give it to people directly?”’ Hazel Atay also works with the organisation.

‘When it was possible to buy abortion pills in the 1980s, countries were quick to restrict them because doctors were afraid they would make abortion seem normal’, says Hazel Atay. ‘It made no sense for you to have to take the pill in front of a doctor. It is only a pill and the doctor is doing nothing. In many countries, abortion is not a right for women and pregnant people, it’s a right for doctors.’ Abortion pills without a doctor give abortion back to the people and allow them to avoid bans. But supporters of abortion pills say that the choice should not take away the responsibility of states and healthcare services to provide abortion care. And it should not replace calls for decriminalisation. Clinics are an important part of a system that makes sure pregnant people can get the type of abortion right for them and to treat any unusual problems.

The anti-gender movement

With the abortion wars in the headlines before the US elections in November 2024, it’s easy to forget that the main global trend is towards liberalising abortion. Over the past 30 years, more than 60 countries – including Benin, South Africa, Argentina, and Colombia – have stopped legal barriers. Only four – Nicaragua, El Salvador, Poland, and the United States – have not. But at the same time there is the opposite theory: the anti-gender movement.

This patriarchal, homophobic, and transphobic conspiracy theory came from the Catholic Church. It came as an answer to 1990s United Nations conferences on women’s rights in Cairo and Beijing. The conferences helped us to understand that reproductive rights are human rights. The anti-gender movement today brings together some strange groups including the Vatican, far-right politicians, European aristocrats, and Russian oligarchs. All these groups believe that ‘gender ideology’ threatens the only true way to live: as a patriarchal and nuclear family unit.

Neil Datta is the founder of the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, and he is an expert on the global anti-gender movement. He says the anti-gender movement does not have a real theory, it’s something made up and it is used to describe everything they don’t like. The anti-gender movement is a very organized and well-funded international movement. It is against abortion and also trans rights, gay marriage, feminism, and sex education. ‘What happened in the US was the result of a 30-year plan by the US Christian Right to influence the justice system,’ says Neil Datta. The movement’s influence is growing thanks to generous financing in part by the rich US Christian Right. Neil Datta’s research shows that over $700 million went to anti-gender campaigns in Europe from 2009 to 2018.

Today the movement receives about $150-160 million a year compared to $20 million in 2009. The centre of the movement is also changing, he says, from civil society to far-right political parties such as Poland’s PiS, Spain’s Vox, and the AfD of Germany.

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An anti-abortion protester puts pieces of dolls into a container after arguing with women on their way to a family planning clinic in Michigan, US, on 5 November 2022. EVELYN HOCKSTEIN/ REUTERS

In Europe, the anti-gender organisations think freeing abortion is a danger to ‘traditional values and the family’. This follows the racist Great Replacement conspiracy theory. The theory says that migration is replacing native white populations. Neil Datta says, ‘Some want to attack abortion not in defence of life but because abortion means one less person of the desired background or race. And so in countries with the danger of the population becoming smaller, they see abortion as a threat to their identity and preservation.’ We see this link of anti-abortion and anti-immigration in Hungary’s hard-right president Victor Orban. He wants stricter abortion rules at the same time as violent policies against migrants and refugees.

A human right

To resist these ideas of people like Victor Orban we need to look at abortion as reproductive justice. This sees abortion as a human right. Renee Bracey Sherman is a US abortion activist. She says, ‘It is possible to have no laws on abortion, but if you can’t afford an abortion… what choice do you really have? And if you want to continue a pregnancy but can't afford another child, you also don't have a choice.’

Without a legal change

So far progress on abortion rights has come from feminist movements, including movements helping people get abortions with or without the law and giving emotional support. These actions give people ways to continue getting safer abortions in countries with serious restrictions.

Feminist researchers say that these groups are offering an alternative model. It puts a pregnant person and their needs at the centre. They are changing the idea of abortion from something medical and individual to something collective and centred on empathy and care. Sandra Rodríguez is a Peruvian anthropologist. She does research on self-managed abortion. She says, ‘In Latin America, care comes from friends, family, and these groups and activists. The Global North can learn a lot about this way of organising.’ Today abortion activists in Mexico are sending pills into the US and building groups of volunteers in Texas to help women get abortions.

Camila Ochoa Mendoza is an abortion and reproductive justice activist. She says, ‘Over the last few years, we are now more radical about how we talk about abortion. You see activists in court sharing the instructions for using abortion pills. We are serious and more open now.’

Camila Ochoa Mendoza says this is a very important part of the journey towards freeing abortion. In her podcast, Abortion with Love, she sees abortions not as traumatic and sad but as normal and with many positive results. ‘If we start with the idea that abortion is a human right, that abortion is a good thing, we can take this conversation much further.’

NOW TRY THE ORIGINAL: https://newint.org/health/2024/how-do-we-free-abortion

(This article is in easier English so it is possible that we changed the words, the text structure, and the quotes.)