The governments of Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom recently committed new funding for Ipas programs to reduce needless deaths and injuries due to unsafe abortions. More than 19 million women each year risk their lives and health through unsafe abortion procedures, according to estimates by the World Health Organization.
Ipas will use the funds to support a wide range of partners in Africa, Asia and Latin America who are working to provide life-saving care to women, as well as enable them to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights.
“These governments have elected to stand with women who are often facing an unwanted pregnancy with no place to turn,” said Elizabeth Maguire, president and CEO of Ipas. “The European donors realize that Ipas plays a unique role in reducing unsafe abortion, as the only international private organization focused exclusively and comprehensively on this issue.”
Ipas developed the concept of high-quality, woman-centered comprehensive abortion care (CAC) and seeks to ensure that it is routinely available in every country, to the full extent allowed by law. CAC services include: counseling; induced abortion or treatment of complications when a woman is suffering from a botched, back-alley abortion; postabortion contraceptive counseling and services to prevent future unwanted pregnancies; and screening and referral for other critical health needs. Many of the women having unsafe abortions are young women or survivors of sexual violence who need other social and medical support.
Ipas works as a catalyst, providing health ministries and other organizations with the information and support they need to strengthen advocacy, clinical services and information for women. In the last five years, Ipas has collaborated with partners through local offices in 13 countries to organize clinical training in abortion-related care for more than 25,000 health workers, has distributed hundreds of thousands of reusable manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) instruments and is expanding its work in medical abortion.
“As we look to the future, Ipas will be dedicating our efforts to revolutionizing abortion care through increasing women’s access to medical methods of abortion, as well as MVA,” said Maguire. “These pills are used safely by millions of women in Europe and the United States, but are scarcely available yet in large parts of the developing world.”
Ipas has also supported local groups advocating for reform of restrictive abortion laws and has partnered with European donors and others in global-level advocacy. In October 2007, in association with Marie Stopes International and Abortion Rights, the U.K. national pro-choice campaign, Ipas co-sponsored the Global Safe Abortion Conference, held in London. The Minister for Development Cooperation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands Bert Koenders was among the speakers.
“Legal barriers serve only to make women wait longer and force them to seek clandestine, substandard care,” said Koenders. “The simple fact of holding an event like this helps us break the silence. We can save the lives of women and girls around the world.”
European governments are also supporting safe abortion programs through their contributions to the Safe Abortion Action Fund administered by the International Planned Parenthood Federation and, in some instances, through their direct assistance in developing countries: the Netherlands in Ethiopia, the United Kingdom in Cambodia and Nepal, and Sweden in India.
In addition to funding, the policy support of the European governments is extremely important for countries around the world, especially to counter the current anti-choice policies of the United States.
“The U.S. government is using its political and financial clout to effectively deny women overseas their reproductive rights and block funding for safe abortion care – even though such care is legal for women in their own countries and for American women,” said Maguire. “As delegates to the London conference agreed, it is time for a global movement to demand that women everywhere facing unwanted pregnancies be treated with respect and compassion and have full access to legal, voluntary, safe and affordable abortions as part of comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care. It is a woman’s basic human right.”
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