MSI: Conference signals new phase in the fight for global safe abortion

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Tuesday, 30, Oct 2007 12:00

London, 26 October 2007 - More than 700 public health experts, government representatives and activists from over 60 countries attended the first-ever global conference of its kind this week in London. The conference renewed commitment and strengthened alliances for expanding access to safe abortion care worldwide.

Organised by the world’s leading provider of safe abortion services Marie Stopes International (MSI), in association with Ipas and Abortion Rights, the Global Safe Abortion Conference confronted challenges and highlighted successes in ending deaths and injuries from unsafe abortion, the leading cause of maternal mortality and morbidity in the developing world.

In his opening address, Marie Stopes International’s Chief Executive Dana Hovig said: “Despite a few islands of backwardness, such as Nicaragua and the current US administration, there is momentum, a growing consensus about the need for safe abortion.

“Country after country is legalising. Portugal, Nepal, Ghana, Ethiopia. Mexico City has given life, light, and hope to women in Latin America. Access to safe abortion is increasing. Contraceptive use is rising. Medical abortion can transform our world, and dramatically increase access.

“So now is the time to fulfil that promise. We put this conference on specifically because it is a time of great hope and possibility. With the wind at our back, we can do so much here, and hereafter.”

Delegates signed a Global Call to Action for Women’s Access to Safe Abortion, which urges government authorities and donors to commit increased resources to ensuring the wide availability of comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care and safe abortion services in both the public and private sectors. Organisers will continue to collect signatures online and seek institutional endorsement of the Call to Action, which will then be introduced at key inter-governmental meetings as a tool to influence policy and generate funding to tackle the issue of unsafe abortion.

Each year unsafe abortion claims 66,500 lives, almost entirely in poor countries, and injures 5 million more women and girls. New data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Guttmacher Institute has shown that while the number of abortions performed globally has fallen slightly in recent years, unsafe abortions have tragically increased.

“By any measure, this situation is deplorable,” said Bert Koenders, Minister for Development Cooperation in The Netherlands, in the conference’s closing plenary. “Unsafe abortion is a major killer.”

Minister Koenders echoed a theme heard frequently throughout the two-day conference when he called for liberalising abortion laws, something The Netherlands – which reports one of the lowest abortion rates in the world – did in 1981.

“Legal barriers serve only to make women wait longer and force them to seek clandestine and unsafe care,” he added. “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.”

For more information, contact Diana Thomas 020 7034 2317, diana.thomas@mariestopes.org.uk or Anna Mawer, 020 7034 2307, anna.mawer@mariestopes.org.uk

Diana Thomas

Communications Manager

Marie Stopes International

1 Conway Street

Fitzroy Square

London W1T 6LP

Tel: +44 (0)20 7034 2317

Fax: +44 (0)20 7034 2404

email: diana.thomas@mariestopes.org.uk

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