Logically, all women receiving abortion care should also receive contraceptive information, and a method if they wish one; likewise, family planning providers should be equipped to support women who have unintended pregnancies. However, integrating family planning and abortion care is often a challenge.
Both Wubalem and Chaltu live only five kilometers from the nearest public health clinic. Under Ethiopian law, both have the right to safe, legal abortion. Yet, because of unnecessarily broad interpretation of U.S. government policy, one was denied this fundamental right.
To explore the feasibility of educating communities about gynecologic uses for misoprostol at the community level through community-based organizations in countries with restrictive abortion laws, the Public Health Institute and Ipas conducted an operations research study in 2012.
This study examined awareness of unwanted pregnancy, abortion behaviour, methods and attitudes toward specific legal indications for abortion via a school-based internet survey among 378 adolescents aged 12–21 years in three Rio de Janeiro public schools.
Despite the adoption of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act in 1972, access to safe abortion services remains limited in India. Awareness of the legality of abortion also remains low, leading many women to seek services outside the health system.
Sex workers’ need for safe abortion services in Uganda is greater than that of the population of women of reproductive age because of their number of sexual contacts, the inconsistent use of contraception and their increased risk of forced sex, rape or other forms of physical and sexual violence. This study sought to understand sex workers’ experiences with induced abortion services or postabortion care (PAC) at an urban clinic in Uganda. Nine in-depth interviews were conducted with sex workers. Several important programmatic considerations for safe abortion services for sex workers were identified. Most important is creating community-level interventions in which women can speak openly about abortion, creating a support network among sex workers, training peer educators, and making available a community outreach educator and community outreach workshops on abortion.
A report on the Expanding the Provider Base Workshop hosted by Ipas in 2013. The workshop brought together delegates from nine countries in Africa, Asia and North America and facilitated the sharing of resources and strategies related to expanding the role of non-physician providers in abortion-related care. It details discussion of key topics at the workshop, including the need for and evidence behind expanding cadres of CAC/PAC providers.
This publication provides an overview of the neglected sexual and reproductive health needs and rights of migrant, refugee and displaced women.
Where abortion is illegal, women suffer. Before 2002 when abortion was illegal in Nepal, women were imprisoned, half of all hospital admissions were due to complications from clandestine abortions, and hundreds of women died each year.
The study investigated whether women with etonogestrel implant placement in the immediate postabortion period have similar continuation rates to women with interval placement.The risk of discontinuation in women with postabortion placement was higher but not statistically different than women with interval placement (unadjusted hazard ratio 1.79, 95% confidence interval 0.81-3.96). For women who want a contraceptive implant after an abortion, immediate placement should be available.
The nation’s top court is scheduled to meet Monday to review a constitutional challenge to the country’s abortion laws and to other policies that impede women’s access to a full range of human rights. A positive decision would mean that for the first time in 41 years, Bolivian women meeting certain conditions for an abortion would be free from criminal sanctions.
Health care providers play a central role in the promotion and protection of human rights in patient care. Consequently, the World Medical Association, among others, has called on medical and nursing schools to incorporate human rights education into their training programs. This report describes the efforts of one Central American nongovernmental organization to include human rights–related content in reproductive health care provider training programs in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Evaluation findings suggest that exposure to educational materials and methodologies that emphasize the relationship between human rights and reproductive health may lead to changes in health care provider attitudes and behaviors that help promote and safeguard human rights in patient care.
Ipas author response to VSI’s letter to the editor,Osur et al.’s Implementation of misoprostol for postabortion care in Kenya and Uganda: A qualitative evaluation
Young Indian women often face social, economic, logistical, policy and health system barriers when accessing sexual and reproductive health services, including safe abortion care. A cross-sectional household survey was conducted in July – August 2012 in Jharkhand, India. We interviewed 1,381 young women (15-24 years) to assess their knowledge, agency, and skills on SRH issues, including safe abortion, and to identify barriers and influencers that lead to particular behaviors, decisions, or service utilization.
This publication explains how international conferences and development agendas have increasingly recognized women’s reproductive rights, including the right to safe abortion, as a necessary component of achieving gender equality. The document calls on world leaders to focus on gender equality and decriminalization of abortion in the post-2015 development framework.
Ipas works with the International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA) to train medical students from around the world on the importance of safe abortion access for women’s health. Here, Joe Cherabie, a medical student in Lebanon and IFMSA student trainer on safe abortion, explains why he believes these trainings are so important.