Initiatives in Bolivia are using new approaches to increasing access to high quality sexual and reproductive health services for all women in multi-cultural settings.
Earlier this month, 150 Mexican women from the state of Morelos asked the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), review constitutional reforms defining personhood as beginning at the moment of conception.
Proposed reforms in Spain's abortion laws recommended by a government-appointed commission of doctors, lawyers, academics and government representatives have the Catholic Church up in arms.
In 2007 the Mexican Supreme Court upheld a law which decriminalized abortion in Mexico City. Since then, twelve Mexican states have approved constitutional reforms defining personhood as beginning at the moment of conception.
An aggressive advocacy campaign by the Catholic Church has resulted in changes in the Constitution of the Dominican Republic protecting "the right to life" from the moment of conception to death.
Colombian LGBT organizations recognized some legal advancement regarding equal rights, but noted that the progress was due to legal demands made by individuals, not a consequence of a public policy or a legislative action.
After a year of unsuccessful lawsuits, a woman living with HIV and sterilized without her consent filed a complaint against Chile before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
U.S. support for an Inter-American Convention on Sexual and Reproductive Rights would restore America's leadership role in promoting women's health abroad.
Until 2007, Colombians believed that female genital mutilation was a practice unique to some African countries. But last year we learned that it has long been practiced by one of Colombia's aboriginal groups.
Google "black genocide" and a multitude of web sites indicting Planned Parenthood and other health providers for perpetrating genocide on black people fill the computer screen. It's tempting to scoff at such claims as the delusional ranting of the lunatic fringe, but that wouldn't be wise.
