Conference Organsiation
The Global Safe Abortion Conference 2007 was organised by Maries Stopes International in association with Abortion Rights and Ipas. To find out more about each of these organisations, click on the corresponding logos below.
In the developing world
Founded in 1976, Marie Stopes International (MSI) now works in 38 countries through a global Partnership of locally registered NGOs in Asia, Africa, Middle East, Latin America and Europe. Services include: family planning; safe abortion and post abortion care; maternal and child health care including safe delivery and obstetrics; diagnosis and treatment of sexually transmitted infections; HIV/AIDS prevention; voluntary counselling and testing and prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV/AIDS.
MSI has developed targeted programmes to address the needs of adolescents and men; marginalised groups such as refugees and internally displaced people and commercial sex workers.
MSI socially markets condoms and other contraceptives for family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention, and has expanded rural clinical outreach in 20 developing countries.
During 2005, 4.8 million people worldwide accessed MSI’s comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services and millions more benefited from information and empowerment campaigns implemented by MSI globally: preventing an estimated five million unplanned pregnancies, saving 11,000 women’s lives and 159,000 infant deaths, and distributing over 138 million condoms.
MSI is also engaged in research, coalition building, advocacy, influencing of international and national policy and resource mobilisation. MSI’s largest programmes are in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Cambodia, China, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam, Yemen and Zimbabwe. During 2006 MSI commenced an ambitious plan of scaling up its programme in Africa as well as starting a joint project with Colombia University focused on comprehensive reproductive health care in crises.
In the UK, Europe and Australia
MSI is now the UK’s largest independent provider of sexual and reproductive health services outside the National Health Service, providing 112,000 services during 2005, during which Marie Stopes One Call, MSI’s telephone helpline and booking service, received 297,000 calls concerning issues related to sexual and reproductive health. Approximately 84,000 British women and men benefit from MSI services every year. The UK operation, in conjunction with more recently established centre based operations in Austria and Australia, raises surplus funds which are donated in support of MSI’s activities in the developing world.
Click here for more information about Marie Stopes International
Ipas is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1973 whose mission is to reduce deaths and disabilities caused by unsafe abortion and increase women’s ability to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights. Ipas is unique in its focus on reducing unsafe abortion, its comprehensive approach to the issue, and its unwavering commitment to the human right of every woman to make safe reproductive choices.
Ipas works globally, with offices and a multidisciplinary professional staff in 15 countries – Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya (serving the Africa region), Nigeria, South Africa, Cambodia, India, Nepal, Vietnam, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico, Nicaragua (serving Central America), Albania (serving Eastern Europe), and the United States. We conduct activities in more than 25 additional countries in collaboration with local partners.
Ipas has made a difference in the lives of tens of millions of women, families and communities throughout the world. Serving as a key technical resource, Ipas has collaborated with a wide range of global, regional, and local organizations engaged in activities to address unsafe abortion and related sexual and reproductive health issues. We do not provide clinical services or directly manage clinical facilities.
Our priority program areas include:
- focusing attention on unsafe abortion as a global public health and human rights concern requiring response from the international community;
- providing clinical training to health care providers and promoting a woman-centered approach to comprehensive abortion care, including post-abortion contraception;
- working with local health systems to expand and improve delivery of abortion-related services as part of comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care;
- supporting communications activities to ensure that women are aware of their reproductive rights and to reduce stigma associated with abortion;
- researching the problem of unsafe abortion and ways to improve services, including state-of-the-art monitoring and evaluation;
- promoting access to preferred technologies for safe abortion care, including manufacturing and distributing manual vacuum aspiration instruments in over 100 countries and paving the way for increased use of medication abortion globally;
- supporting local efforts to influence reforms in abortion laws and policies;
- and producing and disseminating globally training and information materials to inform policy and practice related to abortion.
Click here for more information about Ipas
Abortion Rights, is the national pro-choice campaign working to defend and extend women’s abortion rights in the UK. It was formed in 2003 by the merger of the National Abortion Campaign (NAC) and the Abortion Law Reform Association (ALRA) to unite the pro-choice movement and take forward the demands for reproductive rights.
Abortion Rights is leading the campaign in the UK to:
- Liberalise the current UK abortion law to make abortion available on request
- Oppose any restrictions in women's current legal rights and access to abortion
- Improve women's access and experience of abortion
Abortion law in the Britain is largely based on the 1967 Abortion Act, outdated and unnecessarily restrictive legislation, which creates unfair barriers for women wishing to end an unwanted pregnancy. 40 years on it is time to bring the law into line with the majority of British public opinion – an overwhelming 77 per cent support a woman’s right to choose – and allow women to make this very personal decision. Unlike any other medical procedure, abortion is only legal with the permission of two doctors and in restricted circumstances. As a result, women can still face obstructive GPs - one in ten is anti-choice - and a postcode lottery of National Health Service (NHS) delays - some have to wait up to six weeks before they can access the procedure on the NHS and almost one in five faces independent sector fees.
Abortion Rights is a membership based grassroots organisation working with a broad coalition of supporters - including MPs, peers, medical professionals, journalists, women’s and sexual health and rights organisations, students and trade unions - to build an active and vocal pro-choice movement. To add your voice to the pro-choice majority click: www.prochoicemajority.org.uk
For more information about our work and campaigns click: www.abortionrights.org.uk