Fifty-eight countries are considered permissive of abortions, including the United States, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights. However, the laws vary, with some imposing requirements like waiting periods or required counseling prior to receiving an abortion. Western Europe and the Nordic states are considered some of the most permissive based on access, says Ms. Fine. These regions have legalized abortions with limited restrictions including a requirement for parental approval in Norway or limits based on the age of the fetus in countries like Sweden and Germany.
Just because abortion is legal, however, doesn’t always mean it is safe for all women. India and Great Britain are both considered moderately permissive, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights rankings. But in India, two-thirds of abortions are still unsafe because its laws have not been adequately implemented, says Ms. Fine. “Women can access abortion in accordance with the law in urban settings, but not in rural settings,” she says citing a lack of clinics and trained providers outside of large cities.
“It takes time to get enough trained providers to bring safe and quality services,” says Ms. Solter. “It was the same in the US [after Roe v. Wade]. No [gynecologists] had been trained in abortion for many years, and all of a sudden the law changed.… It took a while to institutionally kick in.”
Mark Sappenfield
Dear Reader,
About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:
“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”
If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.
But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.
The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.
We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”
If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.
