The stigma that often surrounds abortion and anyone associated with it—women, providers, pharmacists and advocates—contributes to abortion’s social, medical and legal marginalization. At Ipas, we know that stigmatizing abortion is inherently harmful to women’s health — preventing them from getting the care they deserve.
More than half the population supports gay marriage and families. So when will abortion and women’s rights to reproductive self-determination be a cultural norm?
This study evaluates the implementation of misoprostol for postabortion care (MPAC) in two African countries, Kenya and Uganda. The Ministries of Health, local health centers and hospitals, and NGO staff developed evidence-based service delivery protocols to introduce MPAC in selected facilities; implementation extended from January 2009 to October 2010. RESULTS: In both countries, MPAC was easy to use, and freed up provider time and health facility resources traditionally necessary for provision of PAC with uterine aspiration. On-going support of providers following training ensured high quality of care. Providers perceived that many women preferred MPAC, as they avoided instrumentation of the uterus, hospital admission, cost, and stigma associated with abortion.
This paper reports results from a nationally representative health facility study conducted in Ethiopia in 2008. It provides the first national snapshot to measure changes in a dynamic abortion care environment.
Blog post contributed by Dr. Osur to the Women Deliver website in preparation for the 2013 conference in Kuala Lumpur. Ipas is a sponsor of Women Deliver.
Beatriz, a 22-year-old Salvadoran mother with lupus and kidney failure, is pregnant with an anencephalic fetus but continues to be denied a therapeutic abortion by the restrictive law in her country.
Lessons learned from integration of postabortion care, menstrual regulation, and family planning services in Bangladesh. This study recommended working toward improved post-procedure contraception delivery and evidence-based appropriate technology use for all procedures by improving collaboration and integration between Bangladesh’s Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) and Directorate General of Family Planning (DGFP).
This is an adaptable trainers’ presentation to inform providers, advocates, government officials and colleagues of the updates in the Second edition of Safe abortion: technical and policy guidance for health systems. Fit with trainers’ notes, each slide can be used in entirety for a full training or individual slides for strategic updates.
Understanding what factors influence the receipt of postabortion contraception can help improve comprehensive abortion care services. The abortion visit is an ideal time to reach women at the highest risk of unintended pregnancy with the most effective contraceptive methods. The objectives of this study were to estimate the relationship between the type of abortion provider (consultant physician, house officer, or midwife) and two separate outcomes: (1) the likelihood of adopting postabortion contraception; (2) postabortion contraceptors’ likelihood of receiving a long-acting and permanent versus a short-acting contraceptive method.
Two major women’s health organizations, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and Planned Parenthood, battled for women’s respect and donations. Two days later the dust is settling and we’re left to wonder what we should take away from the tangle? Was it about fundraising? Women’s health? Politics? I suggest it is about stigma, specifically abortion stigma that has been deliberately attached to a beloved national institution and household name, Planned Parenthood.
Unsafe abortion’s significant contribution to maternal mortality and morbidity was a critical factor leading to liberalization of Nepal’s restrictive abortion law in 2002. Careful, comprehensive planning among a range of multisectoral stakeholders, led by Nepal’s Ministry of Health and Population, enabled the country subsequently to introduce and scale-up safe abortion services in a remarkably short timeframe. This paper examines factors that contributed to rapid, successful implementation of legal abortion in this mountainous republic, including deliberate attention to the key areas of policy, health system capacity, equipment and supplies, and information dissemination.
At a time when the pool of abortion providers is shrinking and abortion clinics are closing, medical abortion can truly increase women’s access, particularly to those in underserved areas. For legislators who want to end access to abortion under any circumstances, medical abortion is an obvious target.
The new WHO recommendations make it painfully clear that, nearly 40 years after Roe v. Wade, we’re doing everything wrong here. Whether it’s gestational limits, ultrasounds, counseling or human rights, nearly every policy proposed by anti-abortion legislators directly contradicts the new WHO guidelines, which are based on years of consultation and discussion, incorporating scientific evidence and international human rights standards.
Unsafe termination of pregnancy is a major contributor to maternal morbidity and mortality. Task sharing termination of pregnancy services between physicians and mid-level providers, a heterogeneous group of trained healthcare providers, such as nurses, midwives and physician assistants, has become a key strategy to increase access to safe pregnancy termination care.
This study aimed to understand women’s pathways of seeking care for postabortion complications in Madhya Pradesh, India. The study recruited 786 women between July and November 2007.
Despite Zambia’s relatively progressive abortion law, women continue to seek unsafe, illegal abortions. Four domains of abortion attitudes – support for legalization, immorality, rights, and access to services – were measured in 4 communities.
Unsafe abortion is a significant contributor to maternal mortality in Nigeria, and treatment of postabortion complications drains public healthcare resources. Provider estimates of medications, supplies, and staff time spent in 17 public hospitals were used to estimate the per-case and annual costs of postabortion care (PAC) provision in Ogun and Lagos states and the Federal Capital Territory.