News Review – 7 July 2017
Ethiopia
This week coming to you from Addis Ababa, where we are looking at the implementation of family planning curricula and service delivery. For more on CIRHT’s activities see our website and a video about the program at Bahir Dar University in northern Ethiopia. CIRHT is building on the work of Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the new Director-General of the WHO, when he was the country’s health minister. A commentary in Devex urges him to apply the lessons learned in Ethiopia to the global stage: “Ethiopia is a success story that highlights how, in a short time and with limited resources, strategic introduction of legal abortion integrated with contraceptive counseling and service delivery can produce significant public health benefits.”
World Population Day/London Summit
July 11 will mark World Population Day, with the theme “Family Planning: Empowering People, Developing Nations”. The London Family Planning Summit also marks the day. Much of the discussion will continue to try to clarify and prepare for changes in global family planning funding, thrown into question by the Trump Global Gag Rule. The state of the world in family planning can be examined in an excellent database released by FP2020/UN Foundation. The statistics, from Guttmacher, are clear: 214 million women in developing countries want to avoid pregnancy but—for a variety of reasons—are not using a modern method of contraception. CARE sums up the barriers to rights-based family planning: “power dynamics and unequal social and gender norms, global human workforce shortages, the increasing number of humanitarian crises and situations of chronic instability, and space for civil society is shrinking so that women and girls still struggle to be heard.” The report does conclude optimistically: “We believe, however, that these barriers can be overcome and results can be achieved.”
Among other international initiatives, including those from PSI Impact and Women Deliver, the Dutch government has committed another €15 million to the She Decides fund, while the Australian government, which has halved its support for family planning and is being urged to reverse course at the summit.
At the country level, the week saw increased family planning access campaigns in Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Legal framework
Access requires a receptive legal framework. France celebrated the life of Simone Veil, the Holocaust survivor who pressed for abortion rights as a government minister. Teen Elle reminded readers of the danger of illegal abortion in the US before 1973, when 20-30 women per day were being admitted to US hospitals because of unsafe procedures, profiling “Jane”, an action group. “From 1968 to 1973 they helped an estimated 11,000 women receive safe abortions back when the procedure was illegal and often deadly, with the death rate for women of color receiving abortions significantly higher than that of white women.” In the UK, the BMA took a stand for abortion access, leading to some doctors to boycott “termination on demand.” Again in the US, the new head of the CDC, Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, may not be as strident an anti-choice advocate as others in the US administration, according to STAT news. “She was on the record in the early 1990s as saying while she opposed federal funding of abortion and favored some restrictions, the final decision should be left to a woman and her doctor.” Because of anomalies in the US law, medical abortion may soon be “available on Amazon.” In Kenya, Supreme Court Justice Njoki Ndungu wants the laws changed “to give more women access to safe abortion.” And in El Salvador, strict enforcement of a strict law has seen a teenager jailed for 30 years for what she said was a miscarriage she suffered after being raped.
The debate in Tanzania about allowing teenage mothers back into school continues. Femnet calls it a setback to the basic right for girls to have education. The Ynaija blog makes an important point: “This law doesn’t find and expel the fathers of these children along with the mothers. They are allowed to continue their education and graduate while the mothers of their children are punished and ostracised.”
More generally, expanding the legal framework for reproductive health and justice saw proponents in Ghana, Malawi, and Uganda.
Medical news
A brief look at relevant medical news: An untreatable gonorrhea superbug is spreading around the world, according to the WHO; warnings in Kenya about dangerous sanitary pads and in Ghana about excessive use of emergency contraception. Regarding diets: going low-carb increases fertility five time, and vegetable protein delays menopause. Finally, a disturbing report that some teenage girls are having genital surgery “to look more like Barbie.”
Complete News Review References:
General/Global
Dutch government pledges €15 million to She Decides family planning fund, NL Times, 7 Jul 2017
Support #HerFuture at the London Summit on Family Planning, PSI Impact, 7 Jul 2017
The Path to 2020: Delivering Transformative, Rights-based Family Planning, CARE, 7 Jul 2017
El Salvador jails raped teenager for 30 years under murder laws after she said she suffered miscarriage, The Independent, 7 Jul 2017
More Than Half of Women Who Had Abortions Were Using Contraception When They Fell Pregnant, Elle UK, 7 Jul 2017
Untreatable gonorrhoea ‘superbug’ spreading around world, WHO warns, The Guardian, 7 Jul 2017
Teen girls are having genital surgery to look more like Barbie, Quartz, 7 Jul 2017
This High-Level Political Forum, Affirm Your Commitment to Girls and Women, Women Deliver, 6 Jul 2017
Sixty years after ‘The Pill,’ the war on contraception continues, STAT News, 6 Jul 2017
Why men need new birth control options, Cavalier Daily, 6 Jul 2017
Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald is named new CDC director, STAT News, 6 Jul 2017
New Consortium Of Australian NGOs Launches Public Campaign To Increase Awareness Of, Support For Family Planning Programming, KFF, 6 Jul 2017
Abortion Might Soon Be Available on Amazon — and Conservatives Have Themselves to Thank, Mediaite, 6 Jul 2017
Why we need to get contraceptives to teenagers, The Guardian, 6 Jul 2017
France Will Bury Its Abortion Rights Champion As a ‘National Hero’, Fortune, 5 Jul 2017
Australian’s foreign aid funding for family planning cut in half, SBS, 5 Jul 2017
A New Vision for advancing our movement for reproductive health, reproductive rights and reproductive justice, ACRJ, 5 Jul 2017
Stepping Up to Increase Abortion Access for Incarcerated People, if when how, 5 Jul 2017
Go ‘low carb’ to increase fertility chances by five times, experts say, The Telegraph, 5 Jul 2017
Health Care Providers Reel After Trump Extends Global Gag Rule, Moyers and Co., 5 Jul 2017
Postpartum psychosis: “I’m afraid of how you’ll judge me, as a mother and as a person”, Mosaic, 4 Jul 2017
Babatunde Osotimehin obituary, The Guardian, 4 Jul 2017
Menstruation does not affect cognitive function, study finds, Medical News Today, 4 Jul 2017
Within 30 years we will no longer use sex to procreate, says Stanford professor, The Independent, 4 Jul 2017
Cancer Survivors May Be Less Likely to Get Pregnant, Reveals Study, NDTV, 4 Jul 2017
Abortion is about two people’s rights but a new vote has paved the way for terminations on demand, The Sun, 4 Jul 2017
Meeting the Maternal and Newborn Needs of Displaced Persons in Urban Settings, MHTF, 3 Jul 2017
Doctors boycott British Medical Association over abortion vote, Catholic Herald, 3 Jul 2017
We should stop selling condoms in the “family planning” section, The Pool, 3 Jul 2017
The gap between black and white infant mortality is creeping up again, leaving researchers puzzled, STAT News, 3 Jul 2017
Pharmacies fail to warn that emergency contraceptive pill is ‘increasingly ineffective’ for most women, Southland Times, 2 Jul 2017
Vegetable protein ‘delays menopause’, Daily Nation, 2 Jun 2017
How Jane Helped 11,000 Women Get Abortions When The Procedure Was Outlawed, Teen Vogue, 1 Jul 2017
Abortion, Legality, and “Moral Value”, Arc, 30 Jun 2017
Greater Investments Needed to Meet Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health Needs in Developing Regions, Guttmacher, 29 Jun 2017
Abortion should be decriminalised in the UK, says British Medical Association, 27 Jun 2017
Academic
UN Foundation’s country-level family planning data, UN Foundation/FP2020, 7 Jul 2017
Antibiotic use in pregnancy and spontaneous abortion, BMJ, Drug and Therapeutics Journal, July 2017
Intimate interventions in global health: family planning and HIV prevention in sub-Saharan Africa, Cambridge University Press, 2017
Burundi
Newborn baby death due to “lack of communication”, doctor says, IWACU, 2 Jul 2017
Cameroon
Family Planning in Cameroon Today: A Prelude to the London Summit, DFID, 5 Jul 2017
Eritrea
International Fistula Day Observed, Shabait, 5 Jul 2017
Ethiopia
Tedros can draw on Ethiopia’s lessons on abortion, Devex, 5 Jul 2017
Ghana
GHS to increase reproductive health services to disabled, Business Ghana, 7 Jul 2017
Parliament lobbied to give attention to Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights, Ghana News Agency, 6 Jul 2017
First Lady calls for support for adolescent reproductive health, CitiFM, 5 Jul 2017
Be wary of excessive emergency contraceptive pill usage, women warned, Ghana News Agency, 1 Jul 2017
Kenya
Justice Njoki Ndung’u rallies fellow judges to back safe abortion, The Standard, 5 Jul 2017
Medic warns on use of dangerous sanitary pads, Daily Nation, 5 Jul 2017
Malawi
Lunguzi says Malawi should tread carefully on mandatory HIV test for pregnant women and their sex partners, Nyasa Times, 4 Jul 2017
Youth Action Movement challenges Parliamentary Caucus on sexual reproductive health, Nyasa Times, 30 Jun 2017
Nigeria
Family planning will reduce maternal mortality – NPC, Daily Trust, 7 Jul 2017
NPC seeks better investment in family planning by govt at all levels, Vanguard, 6 Jul 2017
How To Have Good Male Reproductive Health, Information Nigeria, 6 Jul 2017
West African nurses, midwives meet in Abuja, urged to improve on emergency management, Premium Times, 5 Jul 2017
UNFPA earmarks $12m for contraceptives in Nigeria yearly, Pulse, 4 Jul 2017
FG urged to create counterpart funding for family planning, PM News, 3 Jul 2017
Lagos targets 640,000 pregnant women in Maternal, Newborn Week, NG Lifestyle, 30 Jun 2017
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone embarks on week-long family planning campaign, Journal du Cameroun, 5 Jul 2017
Tanzania
New impetus for family planning, The Citizen, 7 Jul 2017
Banning pregnant girls from school is against the laws of Tanzania, The East African, 4 Jul 2017
This is why teen mothers shouldn’t be left in the cold, The Citizen, 2 Jul 2017
Tanzania’s President Magufuli proves when it comes to reproductive rights Africa really is a country, YNAIJA, 30 Jun 2017
Tunisia
Appel à l’intégration de l’éducation sexuelle complète dans les programmes scolaires, Direct Info, 4 Jul 2017
Uganda
Preventing Teen Pregnancy in Uganda, Springboard, 7 Jul 2017
UK to support Uganda to scale up access to family planning services, KFM, 7 Jul 2017
Family Planning Summit to ensure 120million women access modern contraception, New Vision, 4 Jul 2017
Activists, district leaders demand health reforms, Daily Monitor, 3 Jul 2017
Duo determined to end teenage pregnancies, Daily Monitor, 3 Jul 2017
Zambia
Family planning uptake to increase, Daily Mail, 7 Jul 2017
Zimbabwe
‘Increase sexual, reproductive health awareness at colleges’, ZBC, 6 Jul 2017
Fistula, HIV – Woman’s Nightmare, The Herald, 4 Jul 2017