6 key insights to help fight abortion stigma from our 2025 research

March 26, 2026
Ipas

Abortion stigma causes more than social harm; it is a measurable barrier to global health. It determines whether someone feels safe seeking abortion, whether a provider feels confident about offering care, and it can influence whether communities and governments protect or restrict reproductive autonomy. Drawing from over 18 years of research, Ipas’s continuing work to understand and fight abortion stigma shows where it hides and how it works—and offers evidence-based strategies to confront it.

Why abortion stigma fuels a global health crisis
Abortion stigma targets people who seek abortions, their health-care providers, and anyone associated with abortion care. Research has long shown that stigma increases unsafe abortion because when people delay or avoid care out of fear of judgment, they are more likely to seek out unsafe options.

Continued: https://www.ipas.org/news/6-key-insights-to-help-fight-abortion-stigma-from-our-2025-research/

26.03.2026

Ipas President & CEO Anu Kumar is a finalist for prestigious WIN WIN Award 2026

Nomination recognizes Kumar’s work with Ipas to show that reproductive justice is essential for gender-equal societies

March 17, 2026
Ipas

Ipas President & CEO Dr. Anu Kumar, a lifelong champion for women’s rights and reproductive justice, has been selected as a finalist for the WIN WIN Gothenburg Sustainability Award.

The WIN WIN Award celebrates changemakers who inspire others and lead the way toward a sustainable future. Previous winners include Al Gore and Kofi Annan. This year’s award theme is “gender-equal societies,” and received a record 1,224 nominations from 136 countries.

Continued: https://www.ipas.org/news/ipas-president-ceo-anu-kumar-is-a-finalist-for-prestigious-win-win-award-2026/

17.03.2026

Anu Kumar

Ipas

Malala Yousafzai

WIN WIN Gothenburg Sustainability Award

I want everyone to be free’: A midwife’s fight for women’s bodily autonomy in Chad

Martine Ngaina was arrested for helping a woman access contraception without a husband’s approval—and she kept fighting

March 17, 2026
Ipas

Martine Naigna has spent the last 15 years working as a midwife in Chad’s toughest humanitarian settings—alongside refugee and nomadic communities, including in remote desert areas—to help meet the sexual and reproductive health needs of women and girls who are often the most marginalized and least served by the health system in times of crises.

Now a health systems advisor with Ipas in Chad, she has built her career in a landscape where abortion is legally restricted and where patriarchal norms and systemic barriers have historically cost women their lives. Her advocacy was born of a singular, mounting frustration: witnessing preventable and needless maternal and child deaths because women lacked the autonomy to make decisions about their own bodies.

Continued: https://www.ipas.org/news/midwife-fight-bodily-autonomy-chad/

How this abortion champion is expanding access in Mozambique

‘I will not stop fighting for safe abortion until no woman or girl is left behind’

March 16, 2026
Ipas

A tragic encounter early in her nursing career set Estrela Góia on the path to becoming a dedicated abortion champion who partners with Ipas Mozambique to train providers and expand access.

“I witnessed a lot of maternal deaths as a young nurse, and many were due to unsafe abortions,” says the maternal and child health-care manager with the Provincial Directorate of Health in Mozambique. “I remember once when a young woman came to our clinic with an incomplete abortion. She was desperate and afraid, but unfortunately, it was too late to reverse the damage caused by a back-alley procedure. Despite our best efforts, we couldn’t save her. She died a painful, needless and preventable death, which deeply saddened me.”

Continued: https://www.ipas.org/news/how-this-abortion-champion-is-expanding-access-in-mozambique/

TED makes multi-million-dollar investment to boost safe abortion in 10 countries, prevent 22.6M unintended pregnancies

Mar 2, 2026

Last week, The Audacious Project, an initiative of TED, announced it would be investing $1.03 billion in a new cohort of grantees.

Among the 13 funding recipients is Ipas, an international reproductive justice organization that has worked with partners across Africa, Asia, and the Americas for over 50 years to bring safe and legal abortion and contraception to all.

Continued: https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/ted-audacious-project-ipas-abortion

02.03.2026

News

Anu Kumar

Ipas

The Audacious Project

Ipas Gets Major Funding Boost for Safe Abortion Initiatives

24/02/2026
Kerry Cullinan

Ipas aims to prevent 30% of unsafe abortions in 10 countries by 2040.

The US based reproductive rights organisation Ipas has secured a substantial grant from The Audacious Project to expand global access to abortion and contraception.

The full amount has not been disclosed as Ipas is still negotiating with the donor.

Continued: https://healthpolicy-watch.news/boost-for-ipas-to-expand-access-to-safe-abortion/

24.02.2026

News

Anu Kumar

Dr Jean-Claude Mulunda

Ipas

safe abortion

The Audacious Project

Why sexual and reproductive health and rights belong in climate action

A conversation with Ipas research expert Sally Dijkerman on why climate action must include sexual and reproductive health and rights, and what it will take to move from evidence to real-world solutions.

January 29, 2026
Ipas

Climate justice and sexual and reproductive health and rights work are too often kept separate, even though communities experience them together. That’s why Ipas and partners in the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and Climate Justice Coalition co-authored this perspective, produced in partnership by Ipas’s Sally Dijkerman with Heather McMullen (Queen Mary University of London) and Natalie Hammond (Manchester Metropolitan University), and written on behalf of the coalition:

Frontiers | No climate justice without sexual and reproductive health, rights and justice (SRHRJ): past, present, and future challenges faced by the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and Climate Justice Coalition

Sally Dijkerman shares insights from her work below…

Continued: https://www.ipas.org/news/why-sexual-and-reproductive-health-and-rights-belong-in-climate-action/

29.01.2026

Commentary

climate change and reproductive justice

Ipas

Sally Dijkerman

Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and Climate Justice Coalition

Global

Activism

Human Rights

Expanded Global Gag Rule is a major blow to global health and human rights

The newly expanded rule further advances an extreme anti-rights agenda

Ipas
January 29, 2026

The Jan. 27 expansion of the Global Gag Rule is just the latest action by the current U.S. administration to decimate global health and human rights.

“This policy weaponizes U.S. foreign aid to force the administration’s harmful agenda on people around the world,” says Anu Kumar, Ipas President and CEO. The newly expanded Global Gag Rule will use the power of all non-military U.S. foreign funds to restrict work by a wide array of actors on gender equity, LGBTQI+ rights, and diversity, equity and inclusion—as well as abortion.

“Bullying countries into complying with anti-rights and extremist ideology is despicable and unacceptable,” Kumar says. “The imperialist goals of this administration are on full display in this policy’s conditions to receive U.S. foreign assistance.”

Continued: https://www.ipas.org/news/expanded-global-gag-rule-blow-to-global-health/

29.01.2026

Commentary

Anu Kumar

Dr. Jean-Claude Mulunda

Latest US Restrictions on Aid ‘Bully’ Recipients to Accept ‘Extremist Ideology’

29/01/2026
Kerry Cullinan

Global health organisations have reacted with anger to the new US foreign aid policy, which prohibits all aid recipients, bar military, from performing or promoting abortion, “gender ideology”, or “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI).

“Catastrophic”, “bullying”, “draconian” and “ideologically driven” – are some of their reactions to the Promoting Human Flourishing in Foreign Assistance (PHFFA) policy, announced by US Vice-President JD Vance at an anti-abortion event last Friday evening.

Continued; https://healthpolicy-watch.news/latest-us-restrictions-on-aid-bully-recipients-to-accept-extremist-ideology/

Ipas evidence in action 2025: Research insights on abortion access, quality, and equity

January 28, 2026

Evidence matters most when it helps people act. In 2025, Ipas and partners published research that turns lived realities into practical lessons for improving abortion access and care, especially for people who are too often pushed to the margins.

Across 17 countries and three languages, these studies offer crucial information and methodologies to help push for better standards, smarter investments, and fewer barriers between people and essential health care.

Here’s an overview of our 2025 research you can use in advocacy and action.

Continued: https://www.ipas.org/news/ipas-evidence-in-action-2025-research-insights-on-abortion-access-quality-and-equity/

28.01.2026