Ipas > Ipas and Roe v. Wade at 30: Needs still urgent, after all these years

Ipas and Roe v. Wade at 30: Needs still urgent, after all these years

Ipas

January 22, 2003

Thirty years ago, women in the United States won the right to safe, legal abortion with the historic U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. That landmark ruling saved the lives of thousands of women in the following decades, as deaths and injuries from unsafe abortion plummeted to almost zero in the United States. Also in 1973, Ipas took up its mission to save women’s lives from unsafe abortion in the world’s poorest countries.

Despite 30 years of success – measured in lives saved, injuries averted, and health-system resources conserved – the global challenges that Ipas addresses remain as urgent today as in 1973. So do threats to American women's right to choose.

"Women around the world continue to die needlessly from unsafe abortion," said Ipas president Elizabeth Maguire. "In the U.S., anti-choice forces are endangering women's reproductive rights and public health, with global consequences. Both situations are tragic and require urgent action."

Reproductive Rights Threatened in the U.S.

Before the Roe v. Wade ruling, tens of thousands of American women resorted to illegal, unsafe abortion every year to terminate unwanted pregnancies. Though the incidence and consequences of clandestine abortion are very hard to measure – especially retrospectively – experts estimate that as many as 10,000 women died every year as a result.

Now, American women face only a tiny risk of dying from abortion-related complications – a risk much lower, in fact, than of dying as a result of pregnancy or childbirth. This dramatic decrease in deaths and a correlated decrease in related injuries are due to women’s ability to obtain safe abortions from qualified, skilled medical providers.

"When properly performed, induced abortion is one of the safest of all medical procedures," said Maguire.

Increasingly, though, anti-choice forces bolstered by the administration of President George W. Bush dangerously dominate the U.S. political landscape, threatening to reverse Roe and the public-health gains it achieved. Factors threatening American women’s access to safe abortion services include anti-choice violence directed at clinics and health-care providers, shortages of trained providers, and legislative assaults at both the state and federal levels on women’s constitutional right to abortion.

Further, at least two Supreme Court justices are contemplating retirement, and appointment of just one more anti-choice justice could very well lead to reversal of Roe. A staunch opponent of abortion, President George W. Bush clearly relishes that possibility.

Global Repercussions

Reversal of Roe would have disastrous consequences not only in the United States but also abroad. Already, the Bush administration’s anti-choice crusade has spilled over into the international arena, with devastating effect.

For example, one of President Bush’s first acts in office was to revive the Reagan-era Mexico City Policy, which disqualifies foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from receiving U.S. family-planning funding if they provide counseling on abortion, provide safe legal abortion services except in very narrow circumstances, or participate in political debate surrounding abortion. Since abortion is legally restricted in many countries that are recipients of those funds, the resulting curtailment of family-planning services will result in more unintended pregnancies, more unsafe abortions, and more maternal and child deaths.

In 2002 the Bush administration also withheld a $34 million contribution from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), in response to allegations which its own envoys could not prove that UNFPA supports a coercive abortion policy in China. The funding shortfall has forced service cutbacks in several countries – including Kenya, where family-planning programs in eight rural districts have closed down – and sparked a grassroots campaign by U.S. citizens to make good on their country’s commitment.

Finally, U.S. government representatives outspokenly oppose the global consensus on reproductive health and rights forged at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, mainly because of concerns about abortion. At recent international meetings, U.S. delegations stood in isolated opposition to the ICPD strategy.

These and other Bush administration attempts to roll back the clock on reproductive health and rights reflect a lack of compassion for and understanding of developing countries, where both pregnancy and unsafe abortion pose serious risks to women – especially poor women. According to the World Health Organization, nearly 70,000 women die each year from complications of unsafe abortion. Almost all of these deaths occur in developing countries, many of whose health services depend heavily on U.S. foreign aid, and where access to contraceptive information and services is woefully inadequate.

"The impact in our countries is appalling," said Eunice Brookman-Amissah, Ipas Vice President for Africa and former Minister of Health of the Republic of Ghana. "And it is shameful that the Bush administration refuses to acknowledge that its unethical, politically driven policies are hurting – even killing – poor women all over the world."

Roots in the Helms Amendment

The Bush administration’s right-wing crusade on reproductive health builds on a U.S. tradition of exporting anti-choice policy. This legacy extends at least as far back as another 1973 event: adoption of a legislative amendment introduced by Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) barring U.S. foreign aid for abortion services or advocacy.

"From that day forward," said Ipas's Maguire, "U.S.-funded family-planning clinics in developing countries where abortion is legal have systematically denied poor women the basic rights to safe abortion care that most American women would come to take for granted.

"The Helms amendment not only denied women services in U.S.-funded programs but effectively gave U.S. endorsement to unjust, restrictive policies that have endangered the lives and health of millions of women."

Ipas was founded partly in response to passage of the Helms amendment, which jeopardized ongoing work by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to develop non-electric options for vacuum aspiration. This technology is crucial to providing life-saving postabortion care and safe pregnancy termination to women in developing countries.

Researchers and others affiliated with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill created IPAS — International Pregnancy Advisory Services — to complete development of manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) technology. Ipas (whose name is no longer an acronym) has grown into an international organization that trains and equips health-care providers throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America to deliver safe, often life-saving abortion-related care. Ipas’s work in these and other regions also encompasses research to inform health-care policymakers and advocacy for local, national and international policies that support women’s sexual and reproductive rights.

One of only two U.S.-based nongovernmental organizations that has refused USAID funding to protest the Mexico City Policy, Ipas works with partners around the world to enhance women’s ability to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights. No other international organization focuses as exclusively or comprehensively on improving women’s access to safe abortion, and difficult political climates such as this serve only to increase its dedication.

For more information, contact:
Kirsten Sherk
Senior Associate, Media Relations
e-mail: sherkk@ipas.org
phone: 919.960.5612
fax: 919.929.0258