Thursday 20 February 2014

Abortions in Israel: Time to finally abort pregnancy-termination committees?

Today, I published the second in my two-part miniseries for Israel's Haaretz newspaper on the politics of abortion in Israel. Below are the first 150 words, and in 48 hours I'll re-post the whole article. 

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Abortions in Israel: Time to finally abort pregnancy-termination committees?

How Israel’s abortion law compares to other countries, and why the current political environment may be ripe for reform. Part two of a two-part series.

By  | Feb. 20, 2014 | 3:13 PM

As my previous blog on abortions in Israel showed, Israel's abortion law is not as liberal as some wishfully think. But the questions remain: how does Israel compare to other countries, and has the time come to change the status quo? As for whether Israel is more or less liberal, the answer, in short, is that Israel lies somewhere in the middle.

It is nowhere near as restrictive as the seven countries that ban abortion altogether, even when the life of the woman is at risk. Nor is it as restrictive as counties like Ireland that only allow abortion to save the woman’s life. Mara Klein Clarke, who directs the U.K.-based Abortion Support Network, told me Ireland is “pretty horrific, both North and South … women are seldom allowed to obtain abortions.” As a result, she says, “We’ve heard from women who have thrown themselves down flights of stairs, drunk bleach, chased packages of birth control pills down with bottles of vodka and gin. And this is in 2013/2014 in the supposedly developed world.”

Evidently the abortion situation in Israel could be much worse.

But, equally, it could be much better. 
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This article was originally published by Haaretz. For the full article, click here.