Aiding Abortion in Poland Read about the Polish woman whom activist Justyna WydrzyÅska helped to have an abortion.
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⦠read about the Polish woman whom activist Justyna WydrzyÅska helped to have an abortion. Polish abortion rights activist Justyna WydrzyÅska was convicted last month of âintent to aidâ an abortion. WydrzyÅska had a pack of abortion pills sent to an anonymous womanâs home. This week, that anonymous woman [told]( her story to the Nation, in âher own words, for the first time.â The woman, whom the Nation calls Ania, wanted her pregnancy but her symptoms were severe. On visiting her doctor, she learned she was pregnant with twins. She said, âin my previous pregnancy, a singular pregnancy, I was hospitalized three times with the diagnosis of hyperemesis gravidarum â an uncontrollable severe nausea and vomiting during pregnancy â and spent about a month in the hospital. This timeâ¦I was quite sure that the symptoms would be even more severe to the point where I was fearing for my life.â In the following weeks, she was violently ill, hospitalized, and became depressed. She decided to terminate the pregnancy. And so she sought out abortion pills and, eventually, WydrzyÅska entered the story and sent her the pills, which were discovered by her now-ex partner before Ania could ingest them. She ended up inducing a miscarriage, but not with pills, and less safely. Even though she ended up in the hospital again, she felt she had saved her own life. Ania concluded, âif it had been me who found out that there was a woman in an unwanted pregnancy who was simply begging for abortion pills, I would have given the tablets to this woman, regardless of and no matter what criminal liability is attached to it, because I know that an unwanted pregnancy is torture.â we are star stuff Within Earth sciences, some are pushing to rethink humansâ relationships to one another and our planet â and the wider universe. Writing in Noema, science studies scholar Boris Shoshitaishvili [describes]( three visions of planetary humankind: the noosphere (âthis vision of humankind as an expansive and potentially mindful world-embracing layer provides more than a spatial description of how humans have spread around much of the Earthâs surfaceâ); the âAnthropoceneâ (âofficially proposed as the new geological epoch we inhabit, a time when human activity is pushing the Earth toward potentially catastrophic planetary disruption. Humankind in the Anthropocene is not a sphere but a geological force destabilizing an ancient systemâ); and âGaia theoryâ (which, per Shoshitaishvili, âoffers a third planetary vision, one in which human beings are ambivalent members of an immense living body, a self-regulating planet-sized superorganism called Gaia, after the ancient Greek goddess of the Earthâ). Shoshitaishvili writes that each of these theories has something to offer in how we humans think of ourselves in relation to the planets because: âEach positions human beings in a specific planetary context underpinned by an ancient metaphor and its poetry: the cosmic sphere, the world force, the collective body. Their poetics may be the first hints of the planetâs growing symbolic presence in human life.â [FORWARD TO A FRIEND](
[Credit: Kyle-Philip Coulson on Unsplash] Straining Relations
[• • •] Israelâs violence toward Muslims at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound is testing the strength of Jordanâs 1994 peace treaty with Israel, which many in Jordanian civil society oppose, Dalia Hatuqa [writes]( in Jewish Currents. Hatuqa notes that the âincrease in tensions comes as the actions of Israelâs new right-wing governing coalition are already putting pressure on relations with Jordan.â She uses Israelâs far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrichâs speech in Paris on Mar. 20, 2023, where he claimed that âthere is no such thing as the Palestinian people,â from a podium draped in a map of Israel that included the occupied West Bank, Gaza, and most of Jordan as an example of the vision of the country that the far-right government holds. And that vision has negative historical connotations to many Jordanians, as Hatuqa explains. Jordanâs working relationship with Israel was âdeeply unpopularâ to begin with. Hauqa writes, â80% of respondents in Jordan said the issue of Israelâs occupation of the Palestinian territories was of critical importance to them. Palestinians compose 60% of the population in Jordan, having been driven across the Jordan River in the 1948 and 1967 wars.â And, âWhile the Smotrich incident hit one nerve in Jordan, the recent violence against worshipers at Al-Aqsa hit another. Israelâs repeated violations of the fragile status quo that governs Jerusalemâs holy sites is a longtime point of tension.â [FORWARD TO A FRIEND]( DEEP DIVE Winning the Peace Ukraine is locked in a war it did not choose with Russia in order to preserve its national sovereignty. But a new paper makes the case that, long before that war began, Ukraine was trying to assert its independence internationally: not with war, but through peacekeeping. Writing in Foreign Policy Analysis, Madalina Dobrescu [argues]( âthat statesâ contributions to peace operations can be related to attempts at acquiring a positive identity in the international arena through membership in highly ranked groups.â Dobrescu focuses on Ukraine in particular because âUkraine's significant peacekeeping engagement in the first two decades following independence represents an intriguing case of an emerging state positioning itself in the international and regional systems, which makes it a relevant case study to explore.â âUkraine became independent in an international system that initially discouraged its emergence as a new state and subsequently questioned its permanence as a new international actor,â explains Dobrescu. âTherefore, the main preoccupation of Ukraineâs foreign policy in the years following independenceâ was to define and assert its sovereignty. âSpecifically, Ukraine sought to pursue this goal through a two-fold strategy: gaining recognition for its newly acquired independent status and achieving separateness from Russiaâ¦Thus, Ukraineâs first foreign policy doctrine stated that the young country attached âprimary importance to the peacekeeping activities of UN bodies,â which it regarded as âincreasing the role and influence of the Ukrainian state in the world.ââ Per Dobrescu, Ukrainian decision-makers in the early 1990s saw UN peacekeeping contributions as a way for Ukraine to bolster its self-image both internally and externally. That is not to say that this has been without challenges. As Dobrescu writes, âit is precisely the reference to Ukraineâs national identity and its unsettled nature, oscillating between â and trying to reconcile â east and west, that has rendered NATO and US-led multinational operations highly controversial among domestic elites and the public.â However, a reader might note that both are decidedly less controversial now that the country is engulfed in all-out war with Russia. Dobrescu acknowledges that peacekeeping participation wasnât Ukraineâs only or even main method for building such status, ânor was achieving status the exclusive motivation for engaging in peacekeeping.â Still, she concludes, âThis article has sought to show that states engage in peacekeeping for reputational reasons not merely because âstatus matters,â but in order to achieve a positive social identity in the international system.â Dobrescu observes something else, too: âthe potential for peacekeeping policies to disrupt the international order and change the status hierarchy is an important finding and should be explored further, as it goes against the common understanding of peacekeeping as supporting the status quo.â Ukraine wasnât just helping to keep the peace. It was changing it. [LEARN MORE]( [FORWARD TO A FRIEND]( [• • •] SHOW US THE RECEIPTS Sam Fouad [argued]( that China is proving a counterweight to the United States in part through BRICS, its partnership with Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa. âThe bloc has been making moves to establish itself as an alternative choice in the global economy, pitting itself against current global financial institutions such as the World Bank, the IMF, and the United Nations â the reigning, though perhaps declining, multilateral institutions, which are all dominated by the United States and the West,â Fouad explained. China, Fouad wrote, has been supplementing these efforts with bilateral engagements. Still, Fouad cautioned, China âhas plenty of work to do with current BRICS members if it is to succeed in building this coalition of the Global South to counterbalance the United States and the West.â John Isaacs [looked]( at the return of nuclear hawks. âSince the beginning of the nuclear age, nuclear hawks and US government agencies that build and maintain nuclear weapons have issued study after study âjustifyingâ continued arsenal modernization and growth, even as other government offices have issued grim outlooks for the consequences of a nuclear war,â he wrote. Now, per Isaacs, the nuclear warriors are using challenges from Russia and China to push for their cause: more nuclear weapons, even as ânongovernmental organizations continue to detail the gravest consequences of a nuclear exchange for global health, the climate, and the fate of humanity.â Durrie Bouscaren [took]( readers to Antakya, which had been leveled by the earthquakes that hit southern Turkey. According to Bouscaren, two months later, âThough many residents have left the city to escape the risk of aftershocks, many remain to mourn, offer support and rebuild.â Almost everyone there is living in a tent or converted shipping container, Bouscaren reported. In tent camps, children can go to school for one hour a day. Still, some are beginning to put the city back together again.â Throughout the daylight hours, debris is cleared and packed onto trucks, which are driven out of town and dumped along the highway. Tall mechanical lifts, which spent the first weeks of the disaster pressed into service to rescue survivors, now line up to the rickety husks of apartment buildings as people salvage furniture from their damaged homes,â Bouscaren wrote, adding, âClimbing up into these apartment blocks is dangerous work, but it pays well.â [FORWARD TO A FRIEND](
[Film Updates tweet]( WELL PLAYED We are Barbie girls, [destroyers of worlds](. [Whale skull](? For spring? Groundbreaking. Must [love]( medieval dogs. A [danger]( to all rat tsars. [Whereâs the lie](? Say what you will about Gerry Adams and Joe Bidenâ¦they [found]( their angles under soft lighting. [FORWARD TO A FRIEND]( Follow The World: [fb]( [tw]( [ig]( [www]( [DONATE TO THE WORLD](
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