Safe Abortion in Asia
Making it work !
Dr S P Choong, MB,ChB. FCA.
Chair, Asia Safe Abortion
Partnership (ASAP)
Abortion in our name , Why use abortion?
Why not!!!
35 yrs after Roe vs Wade.
15 yrs since ICPD in Cairo;
20 yrs since RU-486 discovered
•
•
30yrs since approval of MVA,
40yrs since the Pill and the IUCD.
When are we going to make it work??
•
Every day thousands of Asian women, driven by
desperation, poverty and social stigma, seek help
from unskilled providers to end unplanned
pregnancies.
• Every day more than 100 such women, often
young girls, die as a result. Tens of thousands
more suffer life-long disabilities.
•
In Asia, unsafe abortion accounts for 12 percent of
all maternal, or pregnancy-related, deaths and
claims the lives of 38,000 women each year,
according to the World Health Organization.
Why is this situation not considered CRIMINAL
NEGLIGENCE?
•
Restrictive abortion laws and exclusion of safe abortion
services in health programs by governments threaten
the health and lives of tens of thousands of women
every year.
• Many NGOs supporting women’s health programs
continue to ignore the critical importance of abortion
services.
World opinion now considers such restrictions and
exclusions as serious violations of human rights!
(ref: CEDAW, ICPD, MDG’s under the UN, Human Rights
Watch, European Court of Human Rights.)
While some ‘backward’ nations are still debating
about de-crimnializing abortions the, world
community is now seriously working to
criminalise abortion bans/restrictions!!
ASAP—making a difference
• Established a googlegroup to disseminate updated
technical information / regular news on abortionrelated issues globally.
• Expanding our network and experience through
international and regional conferences and workshops.
• Strategic mapping and pooling of existing resources.
• Capacity building for members to develop advocacy
strategies and action plans
• Identifying advocacy opportunities and encouraging
strategic interventions.
• Strengthening the documentation of issues related to
safe abortion in Asia by conducting local studies.
• Liaison with partners on a regular basis through the
website and e-group.
• Setting up a peer to peer support to the providers who
are new to the method of medical abortion.
Our organisational brochure
Our Website www.asap-asia.org
Some highlights……..
1. Research: A qualitative survey of
Legal Professionals
• The qualitative multi-country research study on
knowledge, attitudes and understanding of legal
professionals with regard to safe abortion as a
women’s right.
• Initiated in July 2008 and recently concluded in 7
countries (India, Pakistan, Nepal, Indonesia,
Philippines, Malaysia, Sri Lanka) through local
partners.
Legal Professionals:
do we know what they think?
• To appreciate the differences in knowledge, attitudes
and understanding among legal professionals and law
enforcement officials towards women’s rights to safe
and legal abortion in countries with differing laws on
abortion.
• To prepare strategies for advocacy to improve abortion
access in those countries where it is legal.
• To create a more conducive legal environment to
support safe abortion services for women in countries
where abortion laws are restrictive.
2. Workshop: Understanding Safe Abortion as a
Right: Defining our Position
A three day workshop was held in March in Mumbai with 22
participants from 8 countries of Asia- Pacific region.
The aim of the workshop was
• To better understand the human rights framework for the
advocacy activities in the field of women’s rights and
• To develop skills for the designing of advocacy messages
placing safe abortion in the context of those rights.
• Moving advocacy from health needs to ethics and human
rights advocacy.
3. Linking-up Regionally and Globally:
An International e-forum
• We have an International e-forum
(http://groups.google.com/group/asap-asia?hl=en)
• The postings on this e-forum are the discussions and
updates related to technical, policy, programmatic
issues of Safe Abortion in Asia and Globally.
• This googlegroup has had over 200 postings with 82
members on the list so far.
• Breaking local advocates out of isolation, developing
more confidence through a more cohesive e-community.
4. Socialising Abortion:
Helpline for medical abortion
A proposal to train sympathetic counselors from the
local community to provide information on MA and
linking them to approved providers. Thus: • Creating community access to Medical Abortion
through telephone counseling.
• Linking potential abortion seekers to friendly
confidential service providers and backup services.
• Reduce doctor dependency and clinic resources by
encouraging self medication at home.
• Remove the social stigma (in the long term)
Helpline for medical abortion…..
• Remove the social stigma (in the long term)
• Reduce doctor dependency and strain on clinical
services.
• Empower women by instilling knowledge for selfhelp, enabling them to act as decision makers.
• To “de-medicalise” and socialize the abortion
services through better education, communication
and application of new technology.
Conclusions………
1. Safe abortion advocates in Asia are still operating in
relative isolation in their countries. Regional
networking is needed to increase their strength and
capacity and to generate more confidence in their
work.
2. The ideological position taken by advocates is still
rather diffuse and diverse. Understanding and
adopting a common platform based on human
rights in the abortion debate will enable us to take
a more assertive and aggressive position..
Continued……….
3. The taboo associated with any discussion on
abortion has to be eradicated.
• Collecting and exposing more local data on abortion
situations at all discussions on policies
• Generate more debates on abortion in relation to
women's rights or health.
• This will eventually remove the paralyzing social
stigma of abortion.
Continued………
4. The full potential offered by ‘newer’ medical
technology like MA and MVA is still far from being
realized.
• Creative re-organization of existing services is
needed to ‘socialize’ abortion services to involve the
para medics and community leaders and to reduce
doctor dependency.
• Ultimately, this socialization will also help to destigmatize the issue leading to universal access.
5. Educating all women on ‘DIY’ methods of
abortion is needed to enable them to make
their own decisions on their reproductive
health.
This will translate into greater confidence in
women eventually empowering them to play
a bigger role as decision makers.
Together,
we can make it WORK!
Thank you