When Abortion Pills Were Banned in Brazil, Women Turned to Drug Traffickers
New York Times, 28 Jun 2022
Proponents of abortion rights in the United States have suggested that a post-Roe America would differ in a key way from the era before abortion was legalized nationally. Women seeking abortions today have the option of a medical termination, using hormone pills to trigger the body to expel the fetus in private, a practice approved by the Food and Drug Administration. But the wave of state trigger laws that have begun to take effect after the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe on Friday, bar all abortion, including medication abortions. To get the pills legally, women will have to travel to states where it is allowed, for a medical consultation, even if it is by video or phone, as required by the F.D.A. The trajectory of access to abortion pills in Brazil may offer insight into how medication abortion can become out of reach and what can happen when it does.
Yet again, the census shows women are doing more housework. Now is the time to invest in interventions
The Conversation, 28 Jun 2022
The Australian Census numbers have been released, showing women typically do many more hours of unpaid work per week compared to men. It’s not a new development. I 2016, the “typical” Australian man spent less than five hours a week on domestic work, while the “typical” Australian woman spent between five and 14 hours a week on domestic work. Before that, the 2006 census showed, again, that more of the domestic workload is shouldered by women. So, in the 15 years since the Australian Census started collecting unpaid housework time, women are shown to do more than men. Every. Single. Time. What is unique about these latest census numbers is Australians filled out their surveys during one of the greatest disruptors to work and home life – the COVID pandemic.
Roe v Wade ruling disproportionately hurts Black women, experts say
Reuters, 27 Jun 2022
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a constitutional right to an abortion is expected to have a disproportionate impact on Black women and other women of color, who have traditionally faced overwhelming costs and logistical obstacles in obtaining reproductive healthcare, experts said. The reversal of Roe v Wade allows state governments to decide whether an abortion is legal. While some states have recently reaffirmed the right to an abortion, 26 states are likely or certain to ban abortion in most or all circumstances.
Put women’s rights ‘front and centre’ of climate policies: Bachelet
UN News, 27 Jun 2022
Although climate change threatens everyone, women and girls often suffer its harshest and most violent consequences, UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said on Monday. “While I welcome the international attention on climate change’s impact on women and girls over the last decade, we must urgently also focus on the grave issue of violence against them which has been exacerbated by the climate crisis,” she told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
A devastating blow to women’s rights in America
Financial Times, 24 Jun 2022
The decision had been a likelihood for years and an open secret since a Supreme Court leak in May. It is no less cruel a disaster for that. Six conservative justices, against three dissenting liberals, have ended the national right to abortion in the US. Dobbs vs Jackson Women’s Health Organization will replace Roe vs Wade, the 1973 ruling that it overturned, as the most contentious precedent in American law. This is a dreadful day firstly for women, but also for all those who believed in an enlightened, liberal America. The human cost will be immediate. Lots of states had anti-abortion bills ready for enactment before the ruling. As these restrict the procedure, less safe alternatives will proliferate. Abortions will not be stopped, only safe ones. Patients and providers will risk criminalisation. Women with the means to do so will face the cost and disruption of travelling out of state for something that was theirs by right for half a century. Some legislatures will try to restrict even that recourse. A woman in, say, Arkansas, could soon be encircled by states about as restrictive as her own.
