Nonew appointment with the monthly column open civil rights: in May we talk about menstrual leave, once again the trampled right to abortion, period poverty and the abortion pill
The company that grants its employees menstrual leave
Five days since paid leave for employees who are absent from work due to dysmenorrhea. The initiative is from Masoni Industria Conciaria of Pontedera, which wanted to adopt this measure to recognize what for many women is an extremely disabling condition, namely the intense pain caused by the menstrual cycle.
The Tuscan company is one of the few in Italy to take this step, despite the fact that there are more and more medical and scientific studies that confirm how dysmenorrhea can be compared to a real pathology and despite the increased sensitivity on the subject. But in Europe only Spain recently recognized menstrual leave and in the vast majority of other countries such initiatives are the exclusive prerogative of private companies in the absence of national legislation.
Italy included, even last February, right in the wake of the Spanish line, Greens and Left Alliance they introduced a new proposal of law on menstrual leave that would allow women to miss school and work and stay at home on peak period days: up to two days per month of excused absences for college students suffering from dysmenorrhoea with a medical certificate (as is already the case in a high school in Ravenna), two days a month, with compensation equal to 100% of the salary, for female workers.
At Statale in Milan free sanitary napkins
LARGE’The State University of Milan will distribute free sanitary napkins: a victory for the university’s student representatives, including state independent students and university links, who have been calling for free sanitary products to be distributed to both students and staff for several years.
The battle was won last April, on April 28, when the State University Board of Trustees unanimously approved the proposal presented by the student representatives: “We have always held awareness and mutual aid initiatives, strongly believing in the transformative role of our University, both among the academic community and society as a whole – these were the words of the State Independent Students collective – the stigma attached to menstruation still exists, but we want to fight it everywhere, even in knowledge spaces. The proposal that was presented was shared by the majority of the Student Congress, a choral effort from the representative lists.”
Before the State University, in 2022 it was the University of Padua that planned its distribution a kind of “kit” containing a box of sanitary napkins, disinfectant wipes and plasters.
Japan approves abortion pill
The Japanese government gave the green light to distribution and sale of the abortion pill: The authorization came at the end of April from the Ministry of Health, which announced that it had approved the pill from the British laboratory Linepharma, which had applied for a license for its drug in December 2021. It is a two-phase treatment based on mifepristone (in Italy known as RU486) which blocks a hormone necessary for the development of pregnancy and misoprostol, which must be taken. within 48 hours of each other.
This is a turning point for a country where abortion has been available since 1948 it is legal up to 22 weeks of pregnancybut usually requires the consent of your spouse or partner and where surgery has been the only option until now.
According to public broadcaster NHK, the total cost of the abortion pill and medical advice will come to around 100,000 yen, equivalent to 669 euros. Meanwhile, activists in Japan are campaigning to make it easier to use pill of the daywhich currently cannot be bought without a doctor’s approval, is not covered by health insurance and is the only medicine that must be taken in front of a pharmacist.
Florida bans abortion after six weeks
The Republican governor’s campaign is not stopping FloridaRon DeSantis, vabortion. The governor has even signed a bill that prohibits it after six weeks of pregnancyallowing its use up to week 15 only for victims of rape, incest and human trafficking, provided the patient provides evidence such as a complaint or police report.
“We’re proud to be pro-life and pro-family in the state of Florida,” said De Santis, who drew inspiration from this bill for his presidential campaign. The new law will therefore make it much more difficult for women to seek an abortion, not just in Florida but across much of the southern United States, another attack on women’s rights after the US Supreme Court overturned it last year the Roe v. Wade decisionleaving decisions about abortion up to individual states.
In Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, three of the main states of the South, abortion is now prohibited at any stage of pregnancy, while in Georgia it is allowed until the fetal heart activity is detectable.