Conference Update
Eight hundred 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.”
Ipas President Elizabeth Maguire added: “We will end the hypocrisy of the powerful on abortion and mobilize new alliances to overturn restrictive laws and harmful policies that violate women’s human rights, such as the US Government’s Global Gag Rule.”
Nearly 500 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 availability of comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care and safe abortion services in both the public and private sectors. Organisers plan to continue to collect signatures online and will also 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.
Although entirely preventable, 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 Organization (WHO) and the Guttmacher Institute has shown that while the number of abortions performed globally has fallen slightly in recent years, unsafe abortions, tragically, have 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 liberalizing 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.”
Lord Steel supports reform of his own 1967 Abortion Act
Speaking at Marie Stopes International’s Global Safe Abortion Conference in London, the architect of the 1967 Abortion Act Lord David Steel endorsed calls for reforms to end the requirement for the written consent of two doctors before any abortion can proceed.
To an audience of nearly 800 doctors, politicians, pro-choice activists, donors and members of civil society from over 60 countries, Lord Steel said:
“Many argue that the “two doctors” requirement causes undesirable delay, and since 1967 many of our European neighbours have legislated for abortion up to the 12th or 13th week of pregnancy without such a requirement. The [Parliamentary Science and Technology] Committee should address that.”
Lord Steel also appeared to back the Department of Health position on retaining the current 24 week limit for most abortions.
“There needs to be convincing evidence of viability earlier than that to justify a further change – improvements in photographic technique are not themselves sufficient.”
Lord Steel also clarified his position on the number of abortions carried out in Britain today.
“There can be no such thing as a “correct” number of abortions,” he said. “We in Britain have a much lower rate than in the USA where the subject is a bigger and sometimes more violent debate.
“Each individual case has to be considered on its merits, and the best person to judge that is in most cases the pregnant woman herself.”