Category: Reproductive Health Matters
-
The history and role of the criminal law in anti-FGM campaigns: Is the criminal law what is needed, at least in countries like Great Britain?
This article was published online in Reproductive Health Matters 2015;23(46):145-57. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rhm.2015.10.001. Here is the abstract in English, French and Spanish: Abstract The history of campaigns against female genital mutilation (FGM) began in the 1920s. From the beginning, it was recognised that FGM was considered an important rite of passage between childhood and adulthood for…
-
Framework Convention on Global Health (FCGH) – a blog in response to the May 18 Geneva meeting minutes
A blog by Marge Berer, Editor Reproductive Health Matters. Originally posted on the blog of JALI – the Joint Action and Learning Initiative on National and Global Responsibilities for Health I asked JALI if I could write a blog after I had read the minutes of the May 18 meeting in Geneva on the way forward for…
-
The Brazilian government pays compensation for a maternal death taken up by CEDAW – a decision that has global implications
Lisa Hallgarten, RHM The Brazilian government has agreed to pay compensation for the death of a pregnant woman in 2002. The decision could have implications for governments around the world where women are dying from preventable deaths in pregnancy, childbirth and abortion. The Brazilian government’s move follows landmark decisions by the Committee on the Elimination…
-
China: how can the one-child policy and rights-based family planning be reconciled in the face of recently reported abuses?
Lisa Hallgarten, RHM social media and communications Marge Berer, RHM editor Two recent news stories from China have reawakened concern about overzealous enforcement of China’s one-child policy and the emergence of voices critical of the policy and its implementation. Historically, being a country with 25% of the total world population within its borders, China’s population…
-
Family planning and safe, legal abortion go hand in hand
Marge Berer Editor, Reproductive Health Matters One in three women in the UK will have an abortion in her lifetime, most of whom will have been using contraception of some kind. Yet since as long ago as the late 1930s, there has been a split in the UK between those who insisted on promoting contraception…
-
The morning after: the beginnings of an assessment of the FP Summit
Marge Berer Editor, Reproductive Health Matters 13 July 2012 From a communications point of view, the FP Summit was a raving success. Newspapers, TV and radio all over the world covered it. Around the globe everyone reached by the media heard how wonderful family planning is and how neglected it has been, the Lancet launched…
-
Making change happen is in the air
Marge Berer Editor, Reproductive Health Matters Below, are excerpts from my editorial in RHM 20(39) May 2012. This issue is about reducing maternal mortality, but the more I reflected on it the more I realised it had implications for this week’s summit on family planning. Making change happen is in the air, from the UN…
-
Botched Motherhood – A Poem
A poem by Tiro Sebina – featured in Reproductive Health Matters May 2012 You may not want to hear About a woman who died In labour in a hut You may not want to hear About an expectant woman Who perished aboard A donkey cart On a bumpy road to an apology Of a health post With…
-
All I had to do was take a pill every day, I was told, and hey presto, I didn’t have to worry about getting pregnant!
Marge Berer, Editor, Reproductive Health Matters I was among the first generation of women in the 1960s to experience the miracle of the pill just at the age when I was wanting to start having sex. All I had to do was take a pill every day, I was told, and hey presto, I didn’t…
-
Trends in maternal mortality 1990-2010: latest data
by Marge Berer Editor Reproductive Health Matters Thanks to the Millennium Development Goals and much work on the part of the UN, WHO, many governments and NGOs globally and nationally, the press and media are now highly attuned to what is happening as regards maternal mortality. An announcement by WHO on behalf of the United…