Marge Berer, Editor, Reproductive Health Matters The announcement regarding the decision to allow Beatriz in El Salvador to have a “premature delivery” requires a continuing response from the abortion rights community. The article states: “The medical team at the Maternity Hospital is ready to act immediately at the slightest sign of danger.” In fact, the opposite is…

Marge Berer, Editor, Reproductive Health Matters The news that broke earlier this year from Israel, that Ethiopian Jewish women had been given the injectable contraceptive Depo Provera without their knowledge or consent, awakened a strong feeling of déjà vu for me. This is where I came into this field, 35 years ago. Depo Provera had…

Marge Berer, Editor, Reproductive Health Matters We all have to decide when it’s time to step down as we age, and now we can say “even the Pope”. I’m a few decades younger than him but I can already see that decision waiting in my future too. Maybe he is too frail in mind and…

Marge Berer, Editor, Reproductive Health Matters Below is a summary of the article in full  Termination of pregnancy as emergency obstetric care On 28 October 2012, Savita Halappanavar miscarried at 17 weeks of pregnancy and died in the maternity ward of a hospital in Ireland. Twelve weeks later, articles and blogs about her death continue to…

Lisa Hallgarten, Reproductive Health Matters We should all celebrate the news that on Thursday 20th December 2012, the United Nation’s General Assembly unanimously passed a resolution banning the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Resolutions to eliminate FGM are important. When they are passed in a global forum, they may pre-empt the claims of cultural…

Lisa Hallgarten, Reproductive Health Matters We know that RHM is read in the highest offices and the humblest clinics. Papers we publish provide the evidence to change government policies and support change at the level of clinical practice…and this happens. In our most recent issue of Reproductive Health Matters one paper reports on the impact…

A new RHM supplement explores pregnancy decisions of women living with HIV. It’s free to download here. In 2007 we published this supplement on Ensuring Sexual and Reproductive Health for People Living with HIV. It will be interesting to ring the changes. With the advent of antiretroviral therapy and with continued channelling of resources into…

Marge Berer Throughout 2011 and 2012, Peter Gøtzsche, director of the Norway Cochrane centre, and colleagues have created a publishing storm of articles against mammography screening for breast cancer.  Their articles have appeared in the International Journal of Cancer, Lakartidningen, Radiology, Canadian Medical Association Journal, Cancer Causes & Control, BMJ, Journal of Royal Society of…

Call for a general strike against the Government’s policies on the NHS – and a fig to Jeremy Hunt’s views on abortion Marge Berer Editor, Reproductive Health Matters 6 October 2012 At the Labour conference this week, Andy Burnham accused Jeremy Hunt of failing to make any statements about important current health service issues in…

International Campaign for Women’s Right to Safe Abortion Public statement for:  28 September 2012 International Day of Action for the Decriminalisation of Abortion In spite of increased attention to sexual and reproductive health and rights, and particularly to maternal mortality, in spite of the development of effective technologies to make abortion very safe, and in spite…