Transforming abortion care starts with education

Global partners unite to strengthen collaboration and build a skilled, respectful rights-based health workforce

22 September 2025
World Health Organization

As countries strive to improve access to quality family planning and comprehensive abortion care, competency-based education for key health care providers is emerging as a critical strategy to ensure they are not only knowledgeable, but also practically equipped to deliver respectful, women-centered, rights-based care to everyone, everywhere.

Why competency matters
A recent three-day convening brought together midwives, obstetrician-gynaecologists, civil society representatives, and global health experts from six countries – Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Mozambique, Nepal, and Sierra Leone for the first high-level meeting of the Collaborate for Women, Abortion and Contraception Care Together (C4W ACCT) initiative.

Continued: https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/transforming-abortion-care-starts-with-education

22.09.2025

Commentary

C4W ACCT

Collaborate for women: Abortion and Contraception Care Together

International Confederation of Midwives

International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics

World Health Organization

Global

Health

Human Rights

New Zealand – Expanded Practice, Expanded Horizons: A Rural Midwife’s Journey into Abortion Care

10 September 2025
By Shelley Tweedie, Midwife Manager, Kaitaia Hospital (Auckland, New Zealand)
International Confederation of Midwives

In 2020, New Zealand reformed its abortion laws, removing abortion from the Crimes Act and reframing it as a health issue. This landmark change opened the door for a broader range of healthcare professionals—including midwives—to provide early medical abortion (EMA) care. Our profession is embedded in values of partnership, autonomy, and holistic support so this legal shift marked a profound opportunity to deepen our commitment to women and reproductive autonomy.

Midwives are uniquely positioned to provide abortion care, especially in underserved areas. Our accessibility, trustworthiness, and holistic approach make us ideal providers of EMA services. As a rural midwife, I’ve embraced this change and expanded my scope of practice to include EMA care. This article shares my journey and the impact this has had on my community.

Continued: https://internationalmidwives.org/expanded-practice-expanded-horizons-a-rural-midwifes-journey-into-abortion-care/

10.09.2025

News

early medical abortion

International Confederation of Midwives

midwives and abortion

Strengthening Midwifery and Sexual & Reproductive Health in Sierra Leone

10 September 2025
International Confederation of Midwives

Midwife advisors from the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) recently travelled to Freetown, Sierra Leone, to work alongside the Sierra Leone Midwifery Association (SLMA) as part of the Collaborate for Women (C4W) Abortion and Contraception care Together (ACCT) initiative. Their visit marked the beginning of a series of capacity-building workshops designed to promote the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of women and girls, in line with Competency 2 of the Essential Competencies for Midwifery Practice.

Over three days, 31 participants, including midwifery educators and clinical midwives, gathered to strengthen their clinical skills and understanding of rights-based care. Many had travelled long distances from remote rural provinces, where they are often the only skilled providers available. While already experienced in delivering essential services, they were eager to strengthen their capacity to provide family planning (FP) and Post-abortion Care (PAC) services and protect women’s autonomy, privacy, and confidentiality, and to ensure that care is always based on free and informed consent.

Continued: https://internationalmidwives.org/strengthening-midwifery-and-sexual-reproductive-health-in-sierra-leone/

10.09.2025

Commentary

Collaborate for women: Abortion and Contraception Care Together

Essential Competencies for Midwifery Practice

International Confederation of Midwives

midwives and abortion

Offences Against the Person Act of 1861

post-abortion care

Sierra Leone Midwifery Association

Global Trends in Opposition to Women’s Reproductive Autonomy

10 September 2025
International Confederation of Midwives

Sexual and reproductive health and rights are increasingly under threat. The Trump Administration in the United States has restricted dialogue about and access to contraception and safe abortion causing a global ripple effect. A troubling trend is emerging: other governments and international organisations are following suit by limiting funding and avoiding the language of reproductive rights.

Defunding SRHR – Global Impact and Consequences
The Trump Administration has overseen the dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), withdrawn 500 million USD in global health funding, and terminated all US contributions to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the UN agency for sexual and reproductive health. The result is the destabilisation of global sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) initiatives, undermining progress toward gender equality, jeopardising the 2030 Agenda for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Continued: https://internationalmidwives.org/global-trends-in-opposition-to-womens-reproductive-autonomy/

ICM and FIGO Collaborating for Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health Services

International Confederation of Midwives
6 September 2025

From 02-04 September 2025, midwives, obstetrician-gynaecologists and civil society representing global organisations as well as professional organisations from Nepal, Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Sierra Leone, and Mozambique and Kenya gathered in Nairobi for the first high-level meeting of the Collaborate for Women, Abortion and Contraception Care Project meeting. Over three days, participants reflected on achievements to date, confronted challenges in collaboration, and worked collectively to shape the future of the initiative. What emerged was a strong sense of shared purpose: midwives, doctors, and women’s advocates aligning around a joint vision for advancing FP and CAC services, guided by equality, accountability, and respect.

Continued: https://internationalmidwives.org/icm-and-figo-collaborating-for-access-to-sexual-and-reproductive-health-services/

06.09.2025

News

C4W ACCT

Collaborate for women: Abortion and Contraception Care Together

FIGO

International Confederation of Midwives

International Federation of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists

midwives and abortion

WHO Special Programme in Human Reproduction

World Health Organization

World: States Must Step Up Protection for Abortion Care Providers

29 November 2024
Amnesty International

On international Women Human Rights Defenders Day, a coalition of human rights organizations are launching a new set of guidelines for governments to protect frontline abortion rights defenders, including healthcare providers.

Amnesty International, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), Ipas, MSI Reproductive Choices, the Organisation Pour Le Dialogue Pour L'Avortement Sécurisé (ODAS Centre) and the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) published the Key principles and actions to safeguard abortion care providers as human rights defenders.

Continued: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/11/world-states-must-step-up-protection-for-abortion-care-providers/

It’s Time to Recognize Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare Providers as Human Rights Defenders

Around the world, frontline reproductive healthcare workers are facing physical and verbal abuse, public shaming and humiliation, harassment, legal threats, death threats, sexual assault and rapes—simply for doing their jobs.

Jan 9, 2024
by VICTORIA BOYDELL and KATE GILMORE

Around the world, frontline healthcare workers defending our right to sexual and reproductive healthcare services are under vicious attack from anti-rights actors.

In the horn of Africa, one district health official who has been providing sexual and reproductive health services for 15 years described the attacks he faces from local conservatives: “They tried to even shoot me because of the belief and the values that I had … I had provided family planning service[s] in my district. They said, ‘You are a genocider.’”

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2024/01/09/sexual-health-abortion-healthcare-providers-violence-threats-abuse/

Abortion still heavily criminalized and regulated across the world, says Amnesty report

A new report by Amnesty International looks into the different forms of violence that safe abortion providers and advocates around the world are exposed to

November 25, 2023
by Peoples Health Dispatch

Health workers and activists defending access to abortion continue to face attacks, as shown in a new report by Amnesty International. While previous years have witnessed improvements in the standards of human rights, progressive legislature, and access to medication abortion, many women and girls still encounter insurmountable obstacles in seeking abortion care.

According to the report, abortion “remains criminalized and heavily regulated in most countries.” This disproportionately affects poor and working-class women, as well as those residing in remote areas where healthcare is less accessible. Regardless of whether abortion is criminalized or not, one activist interviewed for the report emphasized, “Women who have money are able to get abortion services, women without money die.”

Continued: https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/11/25/abortion-still-heavily-criminalized-and-regulated-across-the-world-says-amnesty-report/

25.11.2023

News

ally Pairman

Amnesty International

criminalization of abortion

International Confederation of Midwives

MSI Reproductive Choices

Global: People defending abortion rights are being ‘stigmatised, abused, discriminated against, even killed’ – major new report

24 November 2023
Amnesty International

People who are defending the right to have an abortion and those who provide them, and related essential services are being stigmatised, intimidated, attacked and subjected to unjust prosecutions, making this work increasingly difficult and dangerous to carry out, said Amnesty International in a major new report today (24 November).

In the 59-page report, An Unstoppable Movement: A global call to recognise and protect those who defend the right to abortion, reveals how many healthcare workers, activists and advocates around the world face abuse, arrest, prosecution and imprisonment for supporting the right of women, girls and people who can become pregnant to access abortions.

Continued: https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/global-people-defending-abortion-rights-are-being-stigmatised-abused-discriminated

End of US ‘global gag rule’ raises hopes for women’s healthcare at crucial time

‘The gag rule has had a trickle down impact by affecting access to other lifesaving services.’

28 January 2021
Claire Porter Robbins

When the Trump administration reinstated the “global gag rule” in 2017, the
International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) lost some $100 million in funding in the following years, impacting a spectrum of healthcare projects in 32 countries and going well beyond the intended goal of preventing abortions.

A health clinic in Haiti’s southern coastal town of Jacmel was one of the first casualties.

Continued: https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news/2021/1/28/global-gag-rule-abortion-access-biden-mexico-city-policy-haiti-namibia