Putting patients first

Médecins Sans Frontières
18 November 2021

Every year, 25 million people worldwide end their pregnancies with unsafe abortions, and 22,800 of them die from the consequences. Despite these grim figures, abortion is often not treated like the essential health care service it is. Here, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) midwife Nelly Staderini discusses how MSF has incorporated safe abortion into a standard package of health services.

The following Q&A was translated and adapted from an interview with Staderini by the French podcast Programme B.

Continued: https://www.msf.org/putting-patients-first


Colombia on Cusp of Decriminalizing Abortion

With a majority vote in the Constitutional Court this week, Colombia could become the first country in Latin America to remove abortion from its penal code.

Sophie Foggin
November 17, 2021

A few months after arriving in Colombia with her three children, Evaluna, a then 22-year-old migrant from Venezuela, discovered she was pregnant.

“I felt scared; I was very depressed,” she said, after finding out the news. “I had no way of maintaining [the baby] because I didn’t have a job.”

Continued: https://nacla.org/colombia-cusp-decriminalizing-abortion


Empowering women worldwide: A revolution in safe abortion care

28 September 2021
by Dr Manisha Kumar, head of MSF’s task force on safe abortion care

I became an abortion provider almost 10 years ago. Since then, I have helped countless people around the world access safe abortion care. I’ve also witnessed the devastating complications from unsafe abortion when people do not have access to this essential healthcare. Unsafe abortion is one of the main causes of maternal death and suffering worldwide, and the only one that is almost entirely preventable.

An abortion with pills is a game-changer. The simple regimen, taken over 24 hours, has the power to completely revolutionise access to safe abortion care, especially in low-resource and humanitarian settings, where MSF works. Used by millions of people for over 30 years, we have decades of research and experience showing how safe and effective abortion pills are.

Continued: https://www.msf.org/self-managed-abortion-pills-opens-access-millions-people


My abortion story: For International Safe Abortion Day, 15 women share their experiences

SEP 28, 2021
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières

Abortion is a common experience—people of all ages, ethnicities, nationalities, and religions decide to end their pregnancies for various reasons. Yet in many places across the globe, people who have abortions face harmful stereotypes, blame, and social stigma.

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) provides safe abortion care and also treats people for the consequences of unsafe abortion, a leading cause of maternal mortality. In 2020, MSF teams provided more than 30,000 safe abortions in our health care facilities around the world. When our teams talk to people who are deciding to have an abortion, we often hear their personal stories. To mark International Safe Abortion Day, September 28, we want to help break abortion stigma by sharing some first-person stories from women in the places where MSF works. We hear from women all over the world—from Colombia to Democratic Republic of Congo, Greece to India—including students, midwives, and people with and without children.

Continued: https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/what-we-do/news-stories/story/my-abortion-story


How MSF is empowering women through self-care

Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders
Mar 12 2021

For many women and girls in New Zealand, the means to initiate self-care is readily available, with sufficient access to contraception, family planning resources and professional advice.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines self-care as, "the ability of individuals, families and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health and cope with illness and disability, with or without the support of a health-care provider."

Continued: https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/well-good/inspire-me/124488046/how-msf-is-empowering-women-through-selfcare


How lawmakers made it nearly impossible to legalize abortion in Honduras

By Tatiana Arias, CNN
Sun January 31, 2021

(CNN)This week, lawmakers in Honduras changed the country's constitution to make it virtually impossible to legalize abortion in the future -- an extreme election-year move that critics warn will further endanger women's health.

On Thursday, the country's Congress ratified a January 21 amendment to constitutional Article 67, which now specifically prohibits any "interruption of life" to a fetus, "whose life must be respected from the moment of conception."

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/31/americas/honduras-abortion-ban-ratified-intl/index.html


MSF welcomes reversal of the Global Gag Rule

28 Jan 2021

More action is needed to expand access to safe abortion care

On January 28, President Biden rescinded the Mexico City policy, more commonly known as the Global Gag Rule.The policy prevents US government funds from going to any foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that provide abortion-related information, referrals, or services, even with privately raised or non-US funds. It acts as a "gag" on health care providers worldwide, prohibiting them from even counseling women about their reproductive choices or referring them to other health providers for care.

Continued: https://reliefweb.int/report/world/msf-welcomes-reversal-global-gag-rule


Proposed changes to US Global Gag Rule threaten wider harm to women

Interview, 28 September 2020
Médecins Sans Frontières

The United States policy known as the Global Gag Rule has had a devastating impact on women’s access to sexual and reproductive healthcare since it was reinstated and greatly expanded by the Trump Administration more than three and a half years ago. The policy – which already forces health providers to choose between providing information to patients or receiving US funding – is now set to be expanded even further. Dr Manisha Kumar, head of Médecins Sans Frontières' (MSF) task force on safe abortion care, explains the risks facing women and girls.

Continued: https://www.msf.org/proposed-changes-us-anti-abortion-rule-threaten-wider-harm-women


Protecting women’s health during a pandemic

Médecins Sans Frontières
Posted 21 Aug 2020

“If you think about times of crisis—whether it’s disease, displacement, or conflict—women and girls are often disproportionately affected,” says Eva De Plecker, a midwife and head of the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) working group on reproductive health and sexual violence. MSF teams on the ground are seeing that the COVID-19 pandemic is no exception.

“While we are still learning about COVID-19
and how pregnancy may be affected by the virus,” De Plecker says, “experience
from past epidemics such as Ebola has shown that the shutdown of services
unrelated to the outbreak resulted in more deaths than the disease itself.”

Continued: https://reliefweb.int/report/world/protecting-womens-health-during-pandemic


South Africa: Providing safe abortion care during a national lockdown

03 July 2020
Kgaladi Mphahlele, Doctors Without Borders

In 2015, MSF surveyed 800 women between the ages of 18 and 49 in Rustenburg and found that one in four women had been raped in her lifetime, yet fewer than 5 per cent of those women reported to a health care facility. Since then, MSF has run several sexual and reproductive health programs for the community— including for survivors of sexual violence— across Bojanala district, where Rustenburg is located, in partnership with local health authorities.

In addition to community outreach and health
education in more than 20 schools in the district, MSF supports four Kgomotso
Care Centers (KCC) providing sexual violence care.

Continued: https://www.msf.org.za/stories-news/fieldworker-stories/south-africa-providing-safe-abortion-care-during-national-lockdown