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| © David and Lucile Packard Foundation |
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Next week in Washington, D.C., Women Deliver will bring together voices from around the globe to call for action against maternal deaths and injuries. This large, international conference will draw attention to the plight of women everywhere who die because they lack access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care. Unsafe abortion causes 13 percent of maternal deaths worldwide – deaths that could be prevented if women had access to safe, affordable technologies. Almost all of these nearly 67,000 deaths occur in developing countries, half in sub-Saharan Africa.
The voices of the 19 million women who risk their lives every year are not heard in global health discussions and their needs are neglected by leading global health donors. Since 1973, law in the United States has precluded funding for safe abortion information and care in U.S. foreign aid. Bowing to domestic political pressure, the Canadian government also recently declared that it would not include funding for safe abortion in its new maternal health initiative.
Ipas speakers at the conference, including Ipas President and CEO Elizabeth Maguire, will make the case for a concerted global effort to expand women’s access to safe abortion in order to save lives and protect women’s human rights.
Click here for information on abortion-related panels at Women Deliver.
For more information, contact media@ipas.org