By Naomi Connor ‘Impractical’ was the word that Robin Swann, the Northern Ireland Health Minister, used to describe the inhumane forced travel for women from Northern Ireland (NI) to England in order to seek out abortion care during a pandemic. The stories of pregnant people travelling to England and further afield for abortion care isn’t […]
Category: International
Realising the Fragility of Reproductive Rights: Abortion Ban Comes into Force in Poland
By Maria Lewandowska We need to fight for legal and accessible abortion – everywhere. On the 27th of January 2021, after a three-month delay, the verdict of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal from October 2020 has come into force, prohibiting abortion on the ground of fetal anomaly, and effectively banning abortion whatsoever. This decision further restricts […]
Questioning Colonial Legacies in Global Sexual and Reproductive Health Interventions
by Kayla Beare Contraception has improved the lives of countless since entering the mainstream in the 1960s. However, like most facets of sexual and reproductive health, contraception is imbued in a history of colonialism. As someone who was born and raised in a previously colonised country, the presence of colonial legacies in global health have […]
Transforming abortion access beyond the pandemic: patient experiences with at-home medical abortion through telemedicine in Australia
By Laura Fix,1 Jane W Seymour,1 Monisha Vaid Sandhu,2 Jacquie O’Brien,2 Catriona Melville,2 Danielle Mazza,3 Terri-Ann Thompson1 Telemedicine delivery of medical abortion is common and safe In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, telemedicine has emerged as key to sustaining access to essential reproductive health care services. Medical abortion care provided via telemedicine has been […]
How to include the perspectives of women living with HIV in research
By Florence Anam1, Cecilia Chung2, Teresia Otieno3, Martha Tholanah4, Alice Welbourn5 As the 23rd international AIDS conference nears, we reflect once more on what it takes to ensure that issues facing women living with HIV are adequately addressed, especially in the context of COVID-19 and increased rates of domestic violence globally. We know how violence […]
Signposting patients to sexual health online – don’t forget the health (or the sex)
Dr Julia Bailey, University College London eHealth Unit @juliavbailey The Covid-19 pandemic has prompted an unprecedented shift to remote health services as a response to social distancing for patient and practitioner safety. Sexual health clinic capacity has been cut as staff have been deployed to other parts of the health service, and patients are now […]
Should we all be wearing masks? A community midwife’s view.
by Laura Tugores & Octavia Wiseman During the Covid19 pandemic midwives and other front-line workers challenged PHE’s guidelines which said that Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) was not needed when caring for asymptomatic patients. In this blog post, two community midwives talk about what this was like for them. Now that guidance has finally been changed […]
Ensuring personalised care for pregnant women during COVID-19
During a period of lockdown where many of our basic freedoms have been limited, the autonomy and safety of pregnant women can easily be overlooked. In a blogpost last week, Anna Nelson and Chloe Romanis discussed concerns raised about the availability of home birthing during the COVID-19 lockdown. I spoke with Sarah Noble, Head of […]
Limits on gay men’s blood donations reduced in USA
The FDA (Food and Drug Authority) issues guidance on who can donate blood. During the crisis supply has dropped so there is a need to increase donor numbers. In response, the FDA has changed the rules for men who have sex with men. Previously FDA guidance demanded a 12 month deferral period between sex (for […]
Rare but there: exploring utilization of second-trimester abortion in Mexico
By Blair Darney and Lily Alexander Women in Mexico City have had access to free and legal first-trimester abortion since 2007. During this time the Interrupcion Legal de Embarazo (ILE) program has provided abortion services to over 214,000 women. [PARA LEER EN ESPANOL] However, Mexico City is an exception. In the other 31 states of […]