New guidelines on abortion care will help prevent more than 25 million unsafe abortions: WHO

News: The WHO released more than 50 recommendations that include clinical practice, health care delivery and law and policy interventions to support quality abortion care. The WHO also presented new guidelines on abortion care.

What were the reasons that compelled the WHO to bring these guidelines?

Globally, between 13,865 and 38,940 lives are lost yearly due to the failure to provide safe abortion.

Around 97% of unsafe abortions are done in developing countries. As per records, 53.8%, 24.8% and 19.5% of all unsafe abortions happened in the Asia (mainly in south and central Asia), Africa (mainly in eastern and western Africa) and in Latin America and the Caribbean respectively.

Abortion related laws in different countries

Most countries allow abortion under certain circumstances. About 20 countries do not provide any legal basis for abortion. More than 3 out of 4 countries mandates legal penalties for abortion like long-term imprisonment or heavy fines for people who perform or assist with the procedure for the abortion.

Why should the political barrier be removed?

The unsafe abortions occur more in those countries where abortion laws are highly restrictive than in those countries where laws are less restrictive.

It is because political barriers lead to critical delays in accessing treatment.  Therefore, it put women and girls at a greater risk of unsafe abortion, etc.

Restricting access to abortions does not reduce the number of abortions. In fact, it pushes women and girls to resort to unsafe practices. For example, in countries where abortion is mostly restricted, only 1 in 4 abortions are safe, whereas, in countries where the procedure is mostly legal, almost 9 out of 10 abortions are safe.

What are the new guidelines for abortion care?

It includes many simple interventions at the primary care level. Such interventions will improve the quality of abortion care provided to women and girls.

These include task sharing by a wider range of health workers; and making ensure that accurate information on care is available to all those who need it.

It includes providing safe abortion services to women like ensuring access to medical abortion pills,

It proposes telemedicine for abortion and family planning services during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It proposed removal of political barriers to safe abortion, such as criminalisation, mandatory waiting periods before receiving a requested abortion, third-party authorisation for abortion, restrictions on which health workers can provide abortion services.

What benefits can be accrued from the new guidelines?

It will support interested countries to strengthen as well as ensure better implementation of the national policies and programmes which are related to contraception, family planning and abortion services.

The WHO claimed it would prevent more than 25 million unsafe abortions annually.

Conclusion: New guidelines can help provide the highest standard of care for women and girls

Source: This post is based on an article “New guidelines on abortion care will help prevent more than 25 million unsafe abortions: WHO” published in the down to earth on 11^th march 2020