Organizations meet to discuss global priorities for safe abortion care

Forty-two participants from 20 organizations implementing country, regional and global reproductive health programs participated in a Global Technical Meeting on Abortion on June 13 in Washington, DC. The meeting was organized by Ipas and Population Council in collaboration with nine other organizations working internationally to expand women’s access to comprehensive abortion care.

During the meeting, participants discussed global and regional abortion trends and strategies; were given brief technical updates and took part in small group discussions on reaching women most at risk of unsafe abortion, advocacy strategies and overcoming service delivery obstacles.

According to Katherine Turner, Ipas senior training and services advisor and meeting co-organizer, “Meeting attendees agreed on a number of themes for ongoing work and collaboration: addressing and overcoming abortion stigma; financing abortion services to increase access; sustainable reproductive health supplies; ensuring access and appropriate care for young women; integrating medical abortion into existing systems of care; and creating a more united advocacy movement.”

“It’s been a real decade of progress, but momentum is fragile,” said Barbara Crane, Ipas executive vice president for technical leadership and advocacy. “In addition to safe abortion as a matter of public health and human rights, we must emphasize that it is a matter of social justice for poor women to have access to reproductive health care, including safe abortion.”

Another participant added: “We have to ensure that safe abortion isn’t neglected in efforts to address maternal mortality.”

In closing thoughts, John Townsend, vice president and director of the Population Council’s reproductive health program, envisioned a future in which pregnancy prevention and safe abortion are accepted as routine components of women’s health care and called for organizations to adopt a global goal to reduce maternal mortality due to unsafe abortion by 2020, modeled on the Millennium Development Goals.

“Abortion belongs in the continuum of care for women’s health,” he said.

For more information on the meeting, contact ipas@ipas.org.

Source: http://www.ipas.org