Director, Ipas Central America and Mexico: María Antonieta Alcalde In 2007, Mexico City passed landmark legislation to make abortion legal during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Ipas worked with legislators, media and activists to promote the law change. Since then,...
Abortion restrictions in Chile loosened in 2017, and abortion is now legally available in cases of rape, fetal malformation and risk to a woman’s life. Still, real access to legal abortion care remains limited due to a lack of trained providers. In particular, the...
Director, Ipas Central America and Mexico: María Antonieta Alcalde In Central America, Ipas works in one of the most restrictive legal environments for abortion in the world. Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador have complete abortion bans; in El Salvador, women are...
Ipas Bolivia Director: Malena Morales Abortion is only legal in Bolivia in cases of rape, incest and immediate risk to a woman’s health or life. Consequently, unsafe abortion is the third leading cause of maternal death, and an estimated 185 women undergo clandestine...
Ipas works in Argentina to reduce preventable injury and death from unsafe abortion. It is estimated that, each year, unsafe abortion accounts for 18% of pregnancy-related deaths and more than 50,000 preventable hospitalizations in Argentina. The country’s legal...
An abortion provider in Mexico on why everyone deserves access to comprehensive services Dr. Georgina Díaz Orozco is a doctor and Ipas-trained abortion provider in Guadalajara, Mexico. She is also one of the few providers in the state of Jalisco to offer abortion care after the first trimester—due to stigma, most doctors will not perform […]
Misoprostol, un medicamento utilizado para inducir el aborto, es fácil de acceder en la mayoría de las farmacias de México y puede obtenerse sin receta. Esto significa que muchas mujeres eligen el autocuidado del aborto, y que trabajadores de farmacias desempeñan un papel decisivo para asegurar que las mujeres puedan comprar misoprostol sin tener que […]
Abortion is legally restricted in Bolivia, so many women and girls seek to end unwanted pregnancies themselves using medical abortion drugs they obtain from pharmacies or elsewhere. Recognizing the possible harm these women and girls will face if they don’t have accurate information on how to safely use the medications, Ipas Bolivia has adopted a […]
The abortion drug misoprostol is readily available in most pharmacies in Mexico and can be obtained without a prescription. This means that many women choose abortion self-care—and that pharmacy workers play a crucial role in ensuring women can purchase misoprostol without facing stigma, judgment or misinformation. That’s why Ipas Central America and Mexico (Ipas […]
Mexico’s Oaxaca State has become only the second state in the country to decriminalize abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. A revision to the state’s penal code means that women and girls can now legally access abortion services—including from public health centers—without fear of prosecution. “We celebrate this reform, as the government of […]
Malena Morales, Directora de Ipas Bolivia, explica por qué es defensora apasionada del derecho al aborto Malena Morales, Directora de Ipas Bolivia, se incorporó a Ipas en 1999 y sirvió como asesora médica y coordinadora de proyectos de múltiples años de duración—entre ellos uno sobre atención postaborto y uno para mejorar la respuesta a la […]
Estudiante universitaria y defensora de los derechos reproductivos en Chile comparte sus esperanzas para un futuro mejor Mariana Sánchez es una estudiante en pedagogía en historia y ciencias sociales, en la Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano, ubicada en Santiago, Chile. Allí, ella dirige a otras mujeres jóvenes en el trabajo para prevenir y abordar la […]
A college student and reproductive rights advocate in Chile shares why she’s hopeful for the future Mariana Sánchez is a student at the Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano in Chile, where she is completing her undergraduate degree in history and science education. There, she leads other young women in work to prevent and address campus […]
Argentinian provider Dr. Graciela Lukin on what motivates her Read the profile in Spanish here. Graciela Lukin always wanted to help people. At 17, when people began to ask her what she planned to do after high school, she decided she wanted to pursue medicine. She enrolled in the University of Buenos Aires’ School of Medicine, where she would complete […]
By Laura Andrade A new app released last week by Ipas Mexico will make it easier for health-care providers and abortion service providers to access information about safe abortion. “Ipas App Mx” offers user-friendly, visually engaging digital tools designed to educate providers and decrease women’s barriers to accessing safe abortion. The free app, which is in Spanish and only available in Mexico, can be found on the online stores for Android and iOS. The app contains four informational and interactive modules: The regulatory framework for legal abortion in Mexico; Technologies recommended to perform safe […]
Marta María Blandón’s advice to young activists: Invest in partnerships, never lose sight of adversaries En Español After decades of tireless work across Central America, Marta María Blandón is widely recognized as a highly effective and passionate champion for women’s sexual and reproductive rights in the region. “Marta María is never afraid to speak up and speak out when […]
Mexico has the second-largest population of Catholics in the world, which typically is seen as posing a major obstacle to expanding legal access to abortion. But a new study challenges that notion. The study, published in the journal Contraception, says Catholicism is “not an unsurmountable barrier to liberalization of abortion.” Using survey data from 2,669 […]
A study released last month by Ipas Mexico finds that sexual violence is a significant cause of pregnancies in Mexican girls ages 10-14—and recommends specific actions in the country’s health, education and legal sectors to combat the problem and ensure victims can access adequate care, including safe abortion services. The study, “Sexual violence and child […]
Their grassroots movement broke the silence on the need for safe, legal abortion Historic law change doesn’t happen overnight. In Bolivia, a grassroots movement for safe, legal abortion has been building for many years, harnessing the power of leaders from across the country’s diverse population—which has more than 30 indigenous groups. As momentum grew for […]
Ipas’s Dr. Guillermo Ortiz says the health needs of women should come first A movement for safe, legal abortion in El Salvador has been building in recent years, and doctors like Ipas’s Dr. Guillermo Ortiz are also starting to speak out. As an OB-GYN who practiced for more than 20 years under the country’s total […]