Ipas

Increased access to abortion and contraceptive care: abortion is health care, but not everyone has access. Barriers can be financial, legal, or caused by stigma and cultural taboos regarding abortion and women's rights. People who are young, poor, disabled, or living in rural areas or humanitarian settings face the most extreme barriers to reproductive healthcare. No matter where they live, women and girls and all people who can get pregnant should have access to the highest possible quality of abortion and contraceptive care.to ensure high-quality abortion care, we train doctors, midwives and nurses to safely and respectfully perform abortions and provide counseling on contraceptive options. We equip health facilities, provide clinical guidance and tools, and help keep clinics stocked with necessary supplies. We draw on decades of experience helping national governments develop guidelines and protocols that improve their health systems' ability to provide high-quality, accessible abortion care. During the covid-19 pandemic we have championed innovations including chatbots and telemedicine so that people could access abortion and contraceptive care. We also developed online training curricula so that clinical training of health professionals could continue. Ipas addresses the compounded barriers to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health faced by women and girls in refugee camps or who are otherwise displaced. This includes in places affected by climate disasters. Since women and girls are most affected by climate change, Ipas's work to promote women-led climate justice and reproductive justice is central to global development and stability. We conduct research to provide evidence to advance the abortion field and to expand access to safe abortion.

Community access, social support, and knowledge: in a healthy and sustainable abortion ecosystem, people have the information they need to make decisions about their reproductive health, and there is community and health system support for human rights and abortion. Ipas works with local partners to develop innovative ways to connect people with the social support, knowledge, health information and care they need, and to address the social norms that restrict access. Ipas teams reach people through hotlines, telemedicine, community health programs, advocates, and volunteers, and through radio, theater, community dialogues and workshops, and traditional and social media, as well digital applications that share abortion information. To strengthen local capacity on advancing abortion rights, we make small grants for abortion programming and advocacy to women's and youth organizations.stigma shames and silences women who seek abortions plus their health-care providers and anyone associated with abortion and it contributes greatly to the incidence of unsafe abortion. Stigma leads some people to believe that abortion is a rare occurrence, or that only "certain types of women" have abortions. But we know from our work around the world that abortion stigma is global; women in every country regardless of the legal status of abortion are shamed for seeking or for having had an abortion. At Ipas, we have conducted research in ghana, kenya, mexico, nepal, uganda, and zambia to measure stigma, and we have created stigma-reduction programs based on these findings. We also provide trainings to health-care professionals that help them overcome the stigma surrounding abortion and teach them about abortion's legal status.ipas works with global, national, and local institutions to advocate for the inclusion of accurate, non-biased information on abortion in comprehensive sexuality education programs. Plus, we seek to help governments uphold their obligation to provide comprehensive information on sexual and reproductive health to all young people.from our projects around the world including educating female factory workers in nepal and marginalized students in mexico city about how to access safe, legal abortion. Ipas knows that a successful comprehensive sexuality education program must train key stakeholders especially teachers, parents, community members and local organizations that work with youth.

Supportive laws and policies: political support and leadership drive the legal and policy framework that is necessary to realize an individual's abortion rights. Foremost, this includes laws, policies and other regulatory actions that support comprehensive abortion and postabortion care and medical abortion, as well as overall sexual and reproductive health and well-being. Laws and policies on gender equality, public health and protection from violence are also critical aspects of the legal and policy framework for realizing abortion rights.ipas works to ensure that laws and policies respect and protect abortion as a human right, from the united nations to regional laws and at a national level, without harmful barriers that limit access and individual decision-making power. To do this, Ipas educates policymakers, trains police and lawyers on how to uphold reproductive rights within legal systems, and partners with diverse local organizations, advocates, medical associations, community groups and coalitions. We share an advocacy toolkit for local groups working on abortion rights.