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Ipas President Elizabeth Maguire spoke about the importance of preventing unsafe abortion at the Global Safe Abortion Conference in London.

Ipas

More than 700 public-health experts, government representatives and activists from nearly 60 countries concluded the first global conference of its kind today in London with renewed commitment and strengthened alliances to expand access to safe abortion care.
 
The Global Safe Abortion Conference highlighted challenges and successes preventing and dealing with the consequences of unsafe abortion, one of the world’s leading causes of maternal death and injury. The Global Safe Abortion Conference was organized by Marie Stopes International (MSI), Ipas and the U.K.-based organization Abortion Rights, three non-governmental organizations that promote women’s reproductive health and rights.
 
Although unsafe abortion is entirely preventable, each year it claims 66,500 lives and injures 5 million more women and girls. Nearly all of these deaths occur in developing countries. New data from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Guttmacher Institute show that while the number of abortions performed globally has fallen slightly in recent years, the number of unsafe abortions has increased. In Africa—where restrictive laws from the colonial period are still on the books and women’s access to contraception is most limited—the number of deaths from unsafe abortions rose from 29,800 in 2000 to 36,000 in 2003.
 
“By any measure, this situation is deplorable,” said Bert Koenders, minister for development cooperation in the Netherlands. “Unsafe abortion is a major killer.”
 
Koenders echoed a theme heard frequently throughout the two-day conference when he called for liberalizing abortion laws, something the Netherlands – which reports one of the lowest abortion rates in the world – did in 1981.
 
“Legal barriers serve only to make women wait longer and force them to seek clandestine and unsafe care,” he said.
 
Presentations and discussions at the Global Safe Abortion Conference addressed access to safe abortion through the lenses of public health, human rights, gender equity and cost-effectiveness. Attendees examined strategies for promoting reform of restrictive laws, policies and practices concerning abortion, the promise of medical-abortion technologies, and ways to make safe abortion services, along with contraceptive counseling and methods to help couples prevent unwanted pregnancies, more widely accessible regardless of legal context.
 
In remarks delivered at the opening session, Ipas President Elizabeth Maguire said, “We will end the hypocrisy of the powerful on abortion and mobilize new alliances to overturn restrictive laws and harmful policies that violate women’s human rights, such as the U.S. government’s Global Gag Rule.”
 
Nearly 500 conference attendees signed a Global Call to Action for Women’s Access to Safe Abortion, which, among other points, urged government authorities and donors to commit additional resources to make comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care available in the public and private sectors.
 
The document, which is available for downloading and additional signature-gathering,  also declares that “the contraceptive and abortion technologies to save women’s lives have been well known for decades, yet … often [are] not used,” because of political and ideological reasons as well as other barriers.
 
Koenders identified the stigma surrounding abortion as a key barrier to preventing unsafe abortion. “The simple fact of holding an event like this helps us break the silence,” he said. “We can save the lives of women and girls around the world.”
 

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