Women and girls—and all people who can get pregnant—can’t determine their own futures without laws and policies that support access to abortion and contraception.

No matter where they live, women and girls—and all people who can get pregnant— should have access to the highest possible quality of abortion and contraceptive care.

Stigma shames and silences women who seek abortions—plus their health-care providers and anyone associated with abortion—and it contributes greatly to the incidence of unsafe abortion.

We are committed to supporting a woman’s right to have an abortion using pills—on her own, when and where she wants.

People in crisis settings are at higher risk of unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortion—and urgently need access to safe abortion and contraception.

Men can play a crucial role—as partners, family members, community leaders and professionals—in expanding abortion access.

Ipas Nepal works closely with the Ministry of Health and Population to improve the quality of safe abortion services and women’s ability to access them. Programs include training abortion providers, supporting health centers’ efforts to improve quality of care, training young people to be peer educators in sexual and reproductive health and rights, and helping train and support female community health volunteers who reach women in their communities with pregnancy tests and referrals for safe abortion.

Yukti Yojana – A Public Private Partnership for Expanding Availability of Safe Abortion Services in Bihar, featured in the compendium of successful projects in the field of Maternal, Newborn and Child Health that was launched in a conference ‘Sharing of Best Practices: Improving Maternal, New Born and Child Health in India’. The conference was jointly organised by FICCI Aditya Birla CSR Centre of Excellence and Glenmark Pharmaceuticals’ CSR arm Glenmark Foundation on March 28, 2018 in New Delhi.

This policy brief has been developed in consultation with experts in India after a careful review of the Indian context and mapping it with the WHO Guidelines on ‘Health worker roles in providing safe abortion care and post-abortion contraception’ released in 2015. The policy brief highlights legal and policy recommendations for strengthening women’s access to comprehensive abortion care in India.