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February 20, 2002
Ipas, an international nongovernmental organization that has worked for nearly three decades on women's reproductive health, is pleased to announce the launch of a three-year global initiative called the Program to Advance Access to Safe Abortion Care.

"This program will not only save women's lives but will also allow us to take a great step forward in helping women to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights," said Elizabeth Maguire, President of Ipas. "Nearly 40 women every minute undergo unsafe abortions. Each year, millions of women are injured, and more than 70,000 die. These deaths and injuries are entirely preventable."

The new initiative is the first phase of a long-term effort to assure that women everywhere — especially poor women — have access in their communities to safe, high-quality treatment for complications of unsafe abortions and, in circumstances where it is not against the law, elective abortion. "Comprehensive abortion care must also include counseling and services for postabortion family planning and other reproductive health needs, to prevent repeat abortions," said Ms. Maguire.

Initially focused in ten developing countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America, the program builds on previous initiatives undertaken by Ipas and other partners to reduce unsafe abortion, lower maternal mortality and morbidity, and enable women to make and safely act upon their own reproductive choices. Activities will concentrate on training health care providers, expanding the availability of technologies for reproductive health care, and educating policymakers and the public about reproductive rights, as well as unsafe abortion and ways to reduce it.

Support for the program comes from European donor governments, which have pledged about $2.5 million each year for the next three years, and from private foundations. Applying new resources to these goals begins to address longstanding financial neglect of abortion care and women's related reproductive health and rights concerns in developing countries. Recognizing the magnitude of the need, Ipas is committed to mobilizing even more resources to address these challenges in the decade ahead.

European donors contributing to the new program include the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID), the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland. In addition, Ipas receives funds from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands for related activities.

The program is envisioned as a cooperative endeavor involving Ipas and a wide range of global, national and community-level partners. Such partners will include donors, governments, nongovernmental organizations including women's advocacy groups, and private-sector health care providers.

Among the organizations with whom Ipas plans to cooperate closely in providing technical support to national health systems is the World Health Organization (WHO). In a recent interview in the journal Foreign Policy, WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland cited governments' agreements in several recent United Nations documents and reaffirmed WHO's position, in line with these agreements, that "when abortion is legal, women should have access to it."

Ipas expects the new program to help strengthen international commitment to this important principle and to enhance the quality of life for many women, their families and communities.

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