Medical abortion in India: easy access gets popular vote

London, 31 March 2008: New research just released by Marie Stopes International (MSI), a leading global provider of family planning and reproductive health services, has shown that easy access to medical abortion in India has led to both higher awareness and demand, although most people and many providers still believe abortion to be illegal.

Since 1988, medical abortion, a simple, non-invasive process, has offered a safe and cost-effective alternative to surgical abortion. The main drugs used - mifepristone and misoprostol - can be easily administered in rural and remote settings, where unsafe abortion is most prevalent. Taken within the first nine weeks of pregnancy, the drugs have a 98% success rate of terminating pregnancies, with complications proving very rare.

In India, where abortion is legal, the nationally conducted Abortion Assessment Project I in 2004 revealed that of the 6.4 million abortions performed in India in 2002 and 2003, 56% or 3.6 million were unsafe.

In 2008, MSI undertook a study to examine the views of women, men and healthcare providers on medical abortion across two Indian states – Gujarat and Jharkhand. The purpose was to determine how successful India’s approach to out-of-clinic provision of medical abortion has been and what the lessons are for other countries that wish to expand access.

Key findings included the following:
• 64% of women and 85% of men thought abortion was illegal;
• Overall, men are more liberal than women in their views about abortion;
• 65% of women and 57% of men thought that it should be promoted more widely to communities;
• 71% of women and 74% of men rated medical abortion as effective;
• 85% of health care practitioners and pharmacists viewed medical abortion as effective and even more said it should be promoted in the community.
Abortion that has been carried out in unsafe, insanitary conditions causes the death of over 67,000 women a year across the developing world and leads to over five million women being hospitalised due to complications.

MSI provides safe abortion services, where legal, as part of a range of integrated services throughout its global partnership and is committed to exploring new and feasible ways to increasing access to potentially life-saving medical abortion alternatives.

Categories: India; South Asia; Abortion

31/03/2009

Medical abortion in India: easy access gets popular vote

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