Ten years after landmark U.N. conference, action on the global problem of unsafe abortion remains critical

Only limited gains have been made to address the global problem of unsafe abortion since the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, Elizabeth Maguire, president of Ipas, told reporters today at a global meeting to evaluate the progress and future goals of the ICPD in London. Maguire said the results of Ipas research on four continents revealed that governments have not done enough to make abortion safe and accessible where it is legal – a key part of the ICPD’s Programme of Action – and that the liberalization of abortion laws is the only real way to stop deaths and injuries of women from unsafe abortion.

“Until nations everywhere take steps to make abortion legal and readily available as well as helping to remove the stigma that surrounds it, women will suffer,” Maguire said. “Changing the laws and effectively implementing those changes is the only way to ensure that women can fully exercise their right to decide whether and when to have children.”

Maguire spoke at a press conference at the Countdown 2015 Roundtable, a three-day meeting in London attended by hundreds of representatives of nongovernmental organizations from around the world. At the press conference, Ipas released a report titled “Advancing reproductive health as a human right: Progress toward safe abortion care in selected Asian countries since ICPD,” which focuses on Asia and is the last in a series of regional reports evaluating progress on unsafe abortion since the Cairo conference. Other speakers at the press conference included Dr. Fred Sai of Ghana, who chaired the Main Committee of the ICPD in Cairo.

By endorsing the ICPD Programme of Action in 1994, 179 countries agreed to prevent unsafe abortion by increasing the availability of family-planning services and improving the quality of abortion services where allowed by law. Despite this agreement, unsafe abortions continue to claim the lives of nearly 70,000 women every year. For every death, countless others suffer debilitating long-term injuries. In some regions and countries, unsafe abortion accounts for as much as 50 percent of all pregnancy-related deaths of women. These numbers are especially startling since, when properly performed by qualified medical personnel, abortion is one of the safest of all medical procedures.

Based on surveys of key informants in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe, the Ipas reports explore the limited success and significant challenges in implementing abortion-related recommendations of the ICPD over the last 10 years. While the knowledge and resources necessary for preventing women’s deaths from unsafe abortion exist, political, social and religious movements stand in the way in many countries and regions, according to the reports.

Maguire urged immediate action toward solving the problem of unsafe abortion globally, including implementing the safe abortion recommendations from Cairo in tandem with reforming restrictive laws and policies on abortion.

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