The Christian Science Monitor Daily for March 7, 2022

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

59% : It's not that anti-abortion sentiment, religious or moral, doesn't exist in Europe.
58% :Serrin Foster, president of Feminists for Life, says her organization, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this spring, has spent three decades providing young activists with what she calls "pro-woman answers to pro-choice questions."
56% : She'd like to show her support at the March 8 International Women's Day marches, but she expects the green scarves will be omnipresent, and she supports the three-rule exception on abortion.
55% : "Crèches [child care centers], the issue of combining work and motherhood, maternity leave - all these things were available to Polish women under socialism," says Katarzyna Wężyk, a Polish journalist and author of "Abortion Is," which gives voice to women who had an abortion.
53% : A new study published in Science Advances shows that more than half of Americans opposed to abortion would help a loved one who needed one.
52% : On paper, the U.S. is generally more permissive on reproductive rights than most countries: Abortion is allowed in some states to viability of the fetus, or about 23 to 24 weeks.
52% : "When communism fell, we built our democracy based on free media, free judiciary, free elections.
52% :"Abortion becomes an option on the table when something's gone wrong.
52% : "I would love to see abortion happening much less often," says Ms. Bennett, who also understands the faith perspective.
51% : The Constitutional Tribunal ruling last year sparked some of the biggest protests in the country since the fall of communism.
50% : Ms. Abarca, the chess player, believes that the new constitution, which will replace Pinochet's 1980 charter, can reconcile increasing reproductive liberties - enshrining abortion as a fundamental right - while continuing to protect "the life to be born."
50% : In the 1960s, leading up to Roe v. Wade, it was possible to be part of American women's movements without publicly staking a position on abortion, says Kelsy Kretschmer, an associate sociology professor at Oregon State University who has studied early feminist groups.
50% : In a November 2021 poll, some 64% of Poles said they supported abortion under certain conditions, up from 52% a year earlier.
49% : Last year, the Mexican Supreme Court decriminalized the procedure in a landmark decision after Mexico City and various states had passed legislation allowing abortion in the first trimester.
49% : After the fall of communism, political elites and the Catholic Church penned a "compromise law" in 1993 restricting abortion to cases of rape, saving a woman's life, or if the fetus had a severe diagnosis.
48% : Today, as the ruling in the Dobbs case nears, "pro-life feminism," one that seeks to appeal to younger generations who care not just about limiting abortion but about broadening women's equality, has once again gained space in the American feminist movement.
47% : But now the U.S. in particular could send a different message about whether abortion and women's equality go hand in hand.
47% : A half-century after the Roe decision, abortion has largely remained out of reach for women in Latin America.
47% : In many European countries abortion is not only legal and uncontroversial but also funded by the state.
46% : Now Chile, which currently criminalizes abortion except in three strict cases, could legalize the procedure in all circumstances in the first trimester - and Ms. Abarca could be a major player in that change.
46% : Since those cases accounted for nearly all legal abortions performed in Poland, it effectively ushered in a full ban in the country at the heart of the European Union.
46% : In 1973, when Poland was under communist rule, women had freer access to abortion in the country than almost anywhere else in the world.
45% : But abortion is not a wedge issue - and is seen as a topic that goes well beyond a woman's choice.
44% : For Ms. Saa, who served as a mayor and congresswoman, access to abortion is not just about women's rights but about the transition of Chile away from autocratic rule.
44% : She doesn't want to return to the 1980s when abortion was used as a form of contraception.
43% : "[Prohibiting] abortion in Chile is anti-democratic;it comes from an authoritarianism that has cost the lives of women," she says.
43% : "By tying abortion to a much largerissue that affects all classes, races, and genders, I think a greater swath of Western European populations see themselves as having a stake in abortion access."
43% : But now opinions are shifting on abortion, even among some PiS supporters.
43% : "There are no full rights for women without access to abortion," she says.
42% : About 30 restrictions on abortion have been put in place in Ohio in the past 10 years alone, according to Pro-Choice Ohio.
42% : In her mind, those advances don't mean women need less access to abortion.
41% : In February, the Constitutional Court of Colombia voted to decriminalize abortion up to 24 weeks.
41% : In 2020, Argentina fully legalized abortion in the first 14 weeks, after Uruguay in 2012.
40% : At one point, she delved into abortion because the two are intimately connected, she says.
40% : But she warns that sudden restrictions on abortion could happen anywhere.
39% : As the court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization nears in June, which could uphold a Mississippi ban on abortion after 15 weeks, abortion opponents argue that women don't need the procedure as much as they did during the push for reproductive rights in the 1960s and 1970s.
39% : In December Chileans chose a new president, Gabriel Boric, a young leftist who campaigned on a feminist platform, over a conservative who wanted to return to a full ban on abortion.
39% : "Unfortunately in Chile, if you're a feminist, you need to be in favor of abortion," she says.
39% : Ms. Bennett's views on abortion evolved slowly - at college as her worldview expanded but especially after she and her husband had a baby diagnosed with congenital heart defects at birth who died at age 8.
38% : A major reason that Ms. Borquez, traditionally conservative, gave her vote to Mr. Boric was because she didn't want to return to an outright ban on abortion.
38% : "And these Europeans are like, 'Why are you going on about [abortion]?'"
37% : It was under Ms. Bachelet's tenure that access to abortion was finally granted in three cases: the rape of a woman, if the mother's health were at risk, or if a fetus wouldn't survive.
37% : This fall she found herself gathering signatures for a referendum to overturn a municipal ban on abortion that her City Council in Mason, Ohio, passed.
36% : In November, a bill to decriminalize abortion was dismissed in the Chilean Congress.
36% : While an investigation is underway, her family blames a court ruling that went into effect last year that outlawed abortion in the case of fetal deformation.
36% : Abortion was stigmatized, including by liberal media.
35% : The varied actions on abortion around the world are also sharpening a deeper debate: Can you have women's rights without reproductive rights?
34% : According to Pew's most recent polling, 59% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 39% say it should be illegal in all or most cases.
33% : Marta Lempart, who organized the demonstrations and co-founded the Polish Women's Strike, says the conservative ruling party's move to rein in abortion has backfired in this deeply Catholic country.
31% : The conservative dictator's new constitution, in 1980, laid the foundation for making abortion illegal.
31% : They argue this will have the biggest impact on poor women - those who can't access abortion elsewhere when it's made illegal.

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