International Campaign for Women’s Right to Safe Abortion
The ICMA have launched a new international campaign for women’s right to safe abortion. Individuals and organisations are invited to join the campaign in advance of 28 May, the International Day of Action for Women’s Health. To read more and to register support go to https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CHH62F5
UNFPA announces ‘Maternal Deaths Halved in 20 Years’.
The number of women dying of pregnancy and childbirth related complications has almost halved in 20 years, according to new estimates released by the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the World Bank.
US regulators vote for approval of PrEP by large majority.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have taken a decisive step towards approving the use of the combination pill Truvada (tenofovir/FTC) as a prevention method for HIV-negative people. Read more at NAMaidsmap. GlobalData.com reported on 11th May – In a controversial decision on May 10, the FDA antiviral drugs advisory committee backed Gilead Sciences’ drug Truvada to prevent the transmission of HIV. The committee voted in favour of prophylactic Truvada in three populations: HIV-uninfected men who have sex with men (19-3), in HIV-uninfected partners in relationships with infected partners (19-2), and for individuals at risk of acquiring HIV through sexual activity (12-8). Although awareness of HIV and AIDs has significantly increased throughout recent decades, the disease remains a global epidemic requiring better preventative strategies. Yet the possibility that on June 15 the FDA will approve Truvada for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) has provoked strong and divided opinions from infectious disease experts and activists. Read more at globaldata.com
Victories for Center for Reproductive Rights
Victory for Honduran Women
On May 17, 2012, the Center for Reproductive Rights held a demonstration on the steps of the Honduran Congress. Their mission: to stop the government from passing a bill that would have imprisoned women for using emergency contraception. Alejandra Cárdenas, Legal Adviser for Latin America and the Caribbean, had planned to personally hand-deliver 730,000 petitions to the Congress signed by activists in more than 80 countries in protest. In a surprise move, Juan Orlando Hernández, president of the Congress, declined to take the petitions—but not because he didn’t hear the massive outcry. In fact, Hernández said he no longer planned to bring the bill up for debate—and even proclaimed support for women’s self-determination. Read more:
Two Groundbreaking Victories in Oklahoma:
Medication Abortion Protected
Judge Donald Worthington permanently blocked a state ban on medical abortion when he ruled that the law was “so completely at odds” with standard medical practice that it “can serve no purpose other than to prevent women from obtaining abortions and to punish and discriminate against those women who do. Read more:
and Oklahoma Personhood defeated
With a unanimous decision by the Oklahoma Supreme Court, the Center for Reproductive Rights has won its legal challenge to strike down a ballot initiative that would have given every fertilized egg the full legal rights of a person. It is not acceptable, they ruled, to propose amendments to the state constitution that are ‘repugnant to the Constitution of the United States.’” If passed, the amendment not only would have outlawed abortion in all cases—including in cases of rape or incest, fetal anomalies, or risk to a woman’s life—but also would have banned many forms of birth control and seriously threatened fertility treatments such as IVF. Read more:
Distress of child war and sex abuse victims halved by new trauma intervention
A new psychological intervention has been shown to more than halve the trauma experienced by child victims of war, rape and sexual abuse. Researchers at Queen’s University Belfast pioneered the intervention in conjunction with the international NGO, World Vision as part of a wider programme to treat psychological distress in child victims of war and sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Read more: