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Turkmenistan cut our abortion rights overnight. Our ‘allies’ did nothing

Access to abortion for Turkmen people has been shortened to five weeks. There’s been silence from those who could have stood up for our rights

Turkmenistan cut our abortion rights overnight. Our ‘allies’ did nothing
Two Turkmen women in traditional dress, Merv, Turkmenistan | Arterra Picture Library / Alamy Stock Photo
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The US isn’t the only country drastically rolling back reproductive rights overnight.

In April 2022, people in Turkmenistan woke up to the news that our right to abortion care had been virtually erased, at the stroke of a pen.

The government had made public a law restricting abortion access from 12 weeks to just five weeks. (The law had in fact been passed all the way back in 2015, but without any public information, meaning it was effectively secret.)