In Mozambique, preventing COVID-19 and ensuring abortion care continues
Ipas Mozambique has a multifaceted approach to ensuring women and girls can still access needed reproductive health care—with minimal risk of COVID-19 infection—during the pandemic.
Ipas videos on abortion with pills attract almost a million views
In 2018, Ipas Central America and Mexico (Ipas CAM) created an informational video in Spanish on how women can safely self-manage an abortion using misoprostol, a safe and effective drug readily available in most pharmacies in Mexico without a prescription. Staff started using the video to train Mexican pharmacy workers so they could advise and support women seeking abortion pills.
History in the making: A call to repeal the Helms Amendment
The Abortion is Health Care Everywhere Act, first introduced in the U.S. Congress on July 29, 2020 by Democratic Representative Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, would repeal the Helms Amendment—a racist policy that for nearly 50 years has denied access to abortion services to Black and brown women living in low- and middle-income countries.
Telehealth initiative answers ‘the need of the hour’ in Pakistan
With physical access to health facilities in Pakistan severely limited by the country’s rapidly growing number of COVID-19 cases, providing women and girls an alternative way to get reproductive health counseling and information “is the need of the hour,” says Ghulam...
In Latin America, building the world we want after the pandemic
“This pandemic is showing everyone how important a strong public health system is,” says Maria Antonieta Alcalde, director of Ipas Central America and Mexico. Ipas is supporting health systems in Mexico and Central America to ensure abortion and contraception remain...
Trump administration withdrawal from the World Health Organization is an egregious assault on reproductive health and rights
On July 7, in the midst of a global pandemic, the Trump administration officially started the process of withdrawing from the World Health Organization (WHO). As a public health and human rights organization, Ipas condemns this dangerous and reckless move—one that...
Helping health workers prevent infection
© Ipas Nepal © Ipas Nepal The Ipas Nepal team preparing boxes of personal protective equipment to dispatch to health centers they support (above). The team delivered thousands of masks and gloves, plus eye protection, hand sanitizer, soap and other supplies to more...
COVID-19 restrictions compromised abortion access for 1.85 million women in India
The first three months of India’s national lockdown to combat the spread of COVID-19 compromised abortion access for an estimated 1.85 million women, according to a new study by the Ipas Development Foundation (IDF). Restrictions on travel, combined with the health system focus on battling COVID-19, have significantly impacted three points of access—public health facilities, […]
Putting women at the center of the COVID-19 response in Malawi
Malawi has been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, putting its health system under strain. The number of health-care workers is limited, and some staff have been reassigned to treating COVID-19 patients, leaving clinics that offer sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services understaffed. Travel restrictions are hindering women from accessing clinics, and in areas where […]