It’s been nearly a year since the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a global pandemic—a crisis that has disrupted the lives and educations of millions of school-aged children. Even before the pandemic, an estimated 263 million children were not in school, a number that undoubtedly has grown due to school closures to slow the spread of the virus.
Kizza Blair is a fourth-year medical student in Uganda and a member of Medical Students for Choice. In this Q&A, we ask him about the value of safe abortion care and the impact of the Helms Amendment, a U.S. law that restricts U.S. foreign assistance funding for abortion services and disproportionately affects Black and brown women in low- and middle-income countries.
Statement from Ipas President and CEO Anu Kumar:
What we saw on January 6 at the U.S. Capitol was an act of domestic terrorism, incited by the current president. This was not an “undermining” of democracy, but a direct attack on it.
The tireless work of abortion rights advocates paid off on Dec. 30 when Argentina’s senate voted to legalize abortion—an historic shift after the senate rejected a similar bill just two years ago.
In Kenya, the response to curb the COVID-19 pandemic was immediate. In late March, a countrywide quarantine was imposed—airports, schools, churches and mosques were closed, public gatherings were restricted and movement into and around the country was limited.
Ipas honored for outstanding COVID-19 response in the DRC
Young women and girls in Bolivia are facing a rise in sexual violence since the COVID-19 pandemic began—and Ipas has partnered with the country’s ministry of education to tackle the problem.
