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February 6, 2006
At a time when U.S. policy has blocked safe abortion services in many countries, the United Kingdom has stepped up its efforts to combat the global health crisis of unsafe abortion.

Today in London, the United Kingdom’s International Development Minister Gareth Thomas announced his government’s support for a new Global Safe Abortion Programme, with an initial £3 million (roughly US$ 5,251,000) contribution. To be administered by the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), the program will help compensate for the loss of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funds that occurred when President George W. Bush reinstated the Global Gag Rule.

Signed into law by executive order in 2001, the Global Gag Rule prohibits foreign nongovernmental organizations that receive USAID family-planning funds to use their own funds to provide abortion services, counseling or referrals or to advocate for less restrictive abortion laws in their own countries.

In a press release, Thomas said: “We know from experience that the absence of sexual- and reproductive-health services results in an increase in unintended pregnancies and, inevitably, a greater number of unsafe abortions. That is why the U.K. will support organizations like the IPPF and Marie Stopes that are providing medical care to help save women’s lives.” Other nations are invited to give to the program.

Ipas President Elizabeth Maguire said: “Ipas welcomes the leadership demonstrated by two longstanding partners, the Department for International Development (DFID) and IPPF, in taking a strong and visible position against the Global Gag Rule and stating their unequivocal support for women’s access to safe abortion care.”

Each year, 19 million women across the world undergo unsafe abortions; nearly 70,000 will die, and millions more will live with permanent abortion-related injuries.

Thomas also released an IPPF report, commissioned by his department. “Death and Denial: Unsafe Abortion and Poverty” reiterates that poverty is a clear factor in unsafe abortion. More than 95 percent of the annual abortion-related fatalities happen in the developing world. Being at the bottom of the global socioeconomic and gender ladder means that women are less likely to use contraceptives — because they can’t afford them, because they aren’t available or because their male partners object.

The report also states the less obvious connection between poverty and unsafe abortion: that unsafe abortion is a cause of poverty. It says: “… in countries where women can be responsible for up to 100 percent of household income and raising a family, death and morbidity from unsafe abortion exacts a heavy economic and societal toll.”

But with the new U.K. initiative, Maguire said, “the International Planned Parenthood Federation will be able to expand their services and community-level providers will be able to offer their patients more reproductive-health options. These changes will complement Ipas work in training providers, building the capacity of national health systems and increasing availability of the safest abortion technologies. We believe this is a win for women and their communities.”

Ipas research figures in the report, which cites a 2005 Ipas study of abortion prevalence in Kenya. Published in the BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, “The Magnitude of Abortion Complications in Kenya” found that 21,000 women arrive at hospitals annually for abortion-complications treatment in the African country, one of the nations hardest hit by the Global Gag Rule.

 

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