abortion decriminalization

Last month, new legislation in Australia's southeastern State of Victoria decriminalized abortion up to 24 weeks. The legislation presents a good model that should be replicated not only in other Australian states but globally.

Late last week Uruguay's President Tabare Vazquez vetoed a reproductive health bill that would have legalized abortion to the twelfth week of pregnancy.

On Tuesday, Uruguay's House of Representatives approved a bill that includes several measures to ensure sexual and reproductive health, including legalizing abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy.

An estimated one million illegal abortions occur in Brazil each year, yet very few women have ever been imprisoned on for seeking abortion care. That may be about to change. In April, officials took a brisk departure from the nation's relative "tolerance" of illegal abortion practice, arresting the head of a two decade-old family planning clinic for providing abortions and seizing the medical records of nearly 10,000 women.

Should women be criminally punished for having abortions? Some Canadian anti-choice activists think that they should.

The Uruguayan Senate voted Tuesday to decriminalize first-trimester abortions. President Tabare Vazquez has threatened to veto the bill if it passes the House of Representatives.