28 SEPTEMBER 2015 **********************INTERNATIONAL SAFE ABORTION DAY

M A R G E B E R E R , C O O R D I N AT O R ,

OVERVIEW• There has never been so much research or information

on sexual and reproductive health and rights, including on abortion, as there is today, nor so many institutions and people conducting research or journals, public health agencies and bodies, academics and NGOs disseminating knowledge on abortion.

• The development of safe and effective abortion technologies has also taken place.

• Women are still waiting for the fruits of all this research and attention, however. Pregnancy-related deaths from unsafe abortions remain a major public health problem in large parts of the world. Countries that allow women to die in childbirth also allow them to die and suffer from complications of unsafe abortions.

DEATHS FROM UNSAFE ABORTION There have been important improvements, as global

estimates show. The number of deaths globally from unsafe abortion in 2013 was estimated to be 43,684, out of a total estimated number of maternal deaths of 292,982 = 14.9% of the total.

The total in 2008 was 47,000 and the proportion of total maternal deaths was 13%.

The number of abortion-related deaths decreased significantly at the global level and in all regions other than Oceania, where no significant change occurred, and sub-Saharan Africa, where the number of deaths after abortion increased significantly.

Overall, because maternal deaths from other causes have also fallen, deaths from unsafe abortions have slightly increased as a proportion of all maternal deaths, even though the numbers are fewer.

(Kassebaum NJ et al, Lancet 2014;384:980–1004)

COMPLICATIONS OF UNSAFE ABORTION

However, Guttmacher has just completed a study in 26 countries which shows that in 2012 an estimated 6.9 million women were treated for complications of unsafe abortion, (Singh et al, 2015). This puts a heavy burden on scarce hospital resources (up to 50% hospital maternity beds in some countries). Twenty years ago far fewer women reported to hospitals with complications than today. Today, the cost to health systems in developing country regions was estimated to be US $232 million each year. Just for post-abortion care.

The previous estimate, from 2005, was that 5 million women were being treated annually for complications (Singh et al, 2007). Because of the numbers of women of reproductive age in the world growing since then, this is a huge increase. ‒‒>

COMPLICATIONS OF UNSAFE ABORTION 2

Yet in Latin America, Guttmacher's new estimates of the rate per 1,000 women of complications show a 31% decline between 2005 and 2012, from 7.7 per 1,000 women to 5.3 women per 1,000.

Though the Guttmacher authors are very cautious about saying this, this decline is probably due to the increased use of misoprostol. (Singh et al, 2015)

We still need cross-country data to prove it.

Even so, we can draw the following conclusions :

FIVE CONCLUSIONS FROM THE DATA1. We are successfully developing a picture of what is

happening with abortion globally ‒ women's experiences, extent of need, incidence, safety and its absence, improved methods and protocols, optimum health system role, costs. And also information on law and policy and the politics of abortion ‒ though less of that.

2. Post-abortion care has failed to resolve the huge public health problem of unsafe abortion. It must be rejected as a solution to absolve governments who are afraid to confront the issue.

3. As a movement we must convince governments to make abortion safe on public health grounds, and to decriminalize it.

4. This will not happen quickly, as history shows. The opposition is backed by powerful forces, has become fanatical in many places, and is increasingly using lies and violence because it has failed to make its case. Change needs a step-by-step process.

5. There is no doubt of the need for a movement ‒ nationally, regionally, internationally ‒ campaigning for women's right to safe abortion on both public health and human rights grounds.

TODAY, ON 28 SEPTEMBER 2015… We can be proud that there is a growing national, regional

and global movement to campaign for the right to safe abortion, a movement with a century-old history that we all need to know about, so that we don't feel defeated by the sometimes slow pace of change.

We can be proud that because of that movement, there is a growing knowledge among women around the world that the means to safe abortion exists and can if necessary be taken into their own hands and used, with or without the help of governments, health systems or health professionals and in spite of anti-abortion fanaticism.

Lastly, we can fight for the right to safe abortion knowing that it will be because of us in this movement, that some day every abortion requested by a woman will be available, accessible, affordable and using the safest method.

EARLY 20th CENTURY“No woman can call herself free who doesn’t control

her own body.” – Margaret Sanger  

In 1916, Margaret Sanger opened the first family planning clinic in Brooklyn, USA. She was arrested just nine days later, and in the resulting trial, the judge told her that ladies are simply not owed “the right to copulate with a feeling of security that there will be no resulting conception.” The judge told Sanger he’d be lenient and let her off the hook if she swore not to break the law again. She replied: “I cannot respect the law as it exists today.” Sanger was issued a 30-day work sentence; her initial appeal was rejected, but two years later, the New York Court of Appeals legalized contraceptives on prescription. http://www.bustle.com/#/articles/6978-today-in-feminist-history-margaret-sanger.

SOVIET RUSSIA: THE FIRST COUNTRY TO LEGALISE ABORTION: 1920s

Alexandra Kollantai Politically active socialist and feminist in the years leading up to the creation of the Soviet Union. Under Lenin, she founded and became head of the first Women's Department in 1919 and convinced Lenin to legalise abortion in the early 1920s, making the Soviet Union the first country in the world to legalize abortion.

A HISTORY OF FAMILY PLANNING IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY PERU by Raúl

Necochea LópezA fascinating read on the subject of abortion!!!http://uncpress.unc.edu/books/12943.html

20TH CENTURY UP TO THE 1970S Two world wars and a major economic depression in

between them delayed attention to less important issues such as women's rights. However, family planning services were being set up throughout the century and in most countries something was happening with abortion, even if it was low key.

Stalin reversed the Russian law permitting abortions in the 1930s, but after Stalin, in the 1950s and 60s, abortion was legalised across the whole Soviet bloc and indeed access to contraception was the greater problem there for a long time.

In developed countries most abortion laws began to be reformed in the 1960s and 70s. India's law was 1971. Cuba was the first in Latin America in 1979. South Africa 1996.

International Campaign for Abortion Rights 1979

In 1979 the International Campaign for Abortion Rights was launched. Groups in the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Mexico, Peru, the USA, Philippines, and South Africa (and probably more) were members. It existed until 1981 when it became the International Campaign on Contraception, Abortion & Sterilization ‒ Women Decide!, and then in 1985 it changed names again and became the Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights. The name changes were because many women from Africa and some from Asia said they could not join a campaign whose name had "abortion" in it; the issue was too stigmatized. To retain their support, we decided to work for all reproductive rights, until such time as abortion could be raised in its own right. Was that the right decision? I'm still not sure 30 years later…

FLOWERING OF WORK ON ABORTION

Ipas was founded in 1973, the International Consortium for Medical Abortion in 2002, CLACAI, the Latin American regional network against unsafe abortion, in 2005. Our history as a movement is long and overflowing with hundreds of activists, researchers, service providers, policymakers and their efforts. Reading out the long list of organisations and individuals who are campaigning for women's right to safe abortion could easily take from now until tomorrow.

Of that list, there are over 900 groups and individuals who have joined the International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion since it was founded in May 2012 to act as an umbrella for everyone campaigning for the right to safe abortion.

28 SEPTEMBER: THE HISTORY

28 September was originally a day linked to the end of slavery in Brazil. The link with abortion was clear ‒ unless a woman can control what happens in her own body, she cannot call herself free. That makes the right to safe abortion one of the keystones of what we used to call women's liberation in the 1970s and 80s. It explains why abortion is a crucial right symbolically as well as politically.

The Campaña 28 de Septiembre was conceived and launched during the 5th Feminist Meeting of Latin America and the Caribbean, held in Argentina, in 1990. Events have been organised in the region most years ever since.

In 2011 WGNRR declared the Day of Action global.

TYPES OF ACTIVITIES FOR 28 SEPTEMBER

Information leaflets, reports, articles, interviews on radio

marches, rallies, demonstrations, solidarity events public meetings and discussion days street theatre, flashmobs, posters surveys, opinion polls art exhibitions, film/video showings, music evenings calls for legislative change, clarification of the law

and/or implementation of the law calls for increased access to methods and services,

and training of providers.Some activities took place in countries where abortion is routinely debated, others where it is barely spoken of, where simply promoting an event with abortion in the title was in and of itself a step towards breaking the taboo that surrounds abortion.

28 SEPTEMBER IN IMAGES 2011‒2014

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 2011

MEXICO 2011In a protest in Mexico, women's rights activists laid out photographs of women who had died from complications of unsafe abortion.

EL SALVADOR 2011

NICARAGUA 2011

Photo: © Fondo Centro Americano de Mujeres

COUNTRIES WITH ACTIVITIES 2012

Africa – Cameroon, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe

Asia – India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan Australasia/Pacific – Australia, New Zealand Europe – Russia, Poland, Macedonia, Ukraine, Armenia,

Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, UK

Latin America & Caribbean – Mexico, Colombia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Chile, Uruguay, Haiti

Middle East/Mediterranean – Lebanon, Turkey North America – Canada, United States

TURKEY 2012

CAMEROON 2012

IRELAND 2012

COUNTRIES WITH ACTIVITIES 2013

Africa ‒ Cameroon, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tunisia, Uganda

Asia/Pacific ‒ Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand

Europe ‒ Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belgium, France, Georgia, Ireland, Macedonia, Moldova, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, UK

Latin America & Caribbean ‒ Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Puerto Rico, Uruguay

Middle East/Mediterranean ‒ Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Turkey, Turkish Cyprus

North America ‒ United States

+ INTERNATIONAL/REGIONAL NETWORKS

Africa Regional September 28 Campaign Asia Safe Abortion Partnership ASTRA Network Campaña 28 de Septiembre Latin

America/Caribbean International Consortium for Medical Abortion Ibis Reproductive Health Ipas International Planned Parenthood Federation Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights

CAMPAÑA 28 DE SEPT 2013

CATHOLICS FOR CHOICE 2013

CHILE 2013

INDONESIA 2013

IPAS 2013

COUNTRIES WITH ACTIVITIES 2014 AFRICA ‒ Burundi, Cameroon, DR Congo, Ghana,

Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda

ASIA/PACIFIC ‒ Australia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Nepal, New Zealand, Philippines, Sri Lanka

EUROPE ‒ Albania, Austria, Belgium, Georgia, Hungary, Ireland, Macedonia, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK

LATIN AMERICA/CARIBBEAN ‒ Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Mexico, Nicaragua,

NORTH AMERICA ‒ Canada, USA

+ INTERNATIONAL/REGIONAL NETWORKS

Asia Safe Abortion Partnership Campaña 28 de Septiembre CLACAI Latin American Network of Catholics for the Right

to Decide Ipas International Planned Parenthood Federation Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights Pathfinder International

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 2014

HAITI 2014

FRANCE 2014

AROUND THE WORLD, WOMEN ARE TAKING ABORTION INTO THEIR OWN

HANDS…

… AND DEMONSTRATING AGAINST ANTI-ABORTION BILLS ‒ SPAIN, FEB

2014

28 SEPTEMBER: WHAT'S IN A NAMEFor the past 4 years, 28 September has had two names, which

has been very confusing for a lot of people, who sometimes mix them up:

1990‒2014 - International Day of Action for the Decriminalisation of Abortion

2011‒2014 - Global Day of Action for Safe and Legal Abortion

In 2015, to end the confusion and return to one name, the International Campaign Advisory Group agreed to change the name to International Safe Abortion Day.

We also agreed to seek official recognition for 28 Sept as an International Day at UN level. So we chose the simplest, most acceptable name we could think of.

CELEBRATE 28 YEARS OF 28 SEPTEMBER IN 2015 !

CELEBRATE INTERNATIONAL SAFE

ABORTION DAYLET'S MAKE 28 SEPT 2015

THE BIGGEST & BEST DAY OF ACTION YET!!

SAFE ABORTION : WOMEN'S RIGHT !!!

www.safeabortionwomensright.org

http://www.safeabortionwomensright.org/28-sept-day-of-action/post-your-report/