What Women Want: Meeting the Global Demand for Medical Abortion

Globally, an estimated 19 to 20 million unsafe abortions take place every year. Women around the world urgently need better access to safer methods for ending unplanned pregnancies. This short publication seeks to address the lack of documentation in relation to demand for and access to medical abortion, by highlighting best practice and lessons learnt. Medical abortion involves taking medication to cause an early miscarriage and does not involve surgery.The document argues that medical abortion saves women’s lives and has enormous potential to increase access to safe abortion at minimal cost. Yet access to medical abortion is severely reduced in many parts of the world. Governments and healthcare providers are failing to meet the growing demand, which is in turn leading to a growing underground economy in the supply of medical abortion drugs. A brief text box explains Medical Abortion as the combined use of the two drugs Mifepristone and Misoprostol which are recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for early medical abortion in the first nine weeks. The document outlines how some effective and innovative practices in meeting the demand for medical abortion. For example, ‘task-shifting’ makes it possible for lower-level providers, such as trained pharmacists and community health workers, to provide medical abortion in rural and remote areas instead of doctors. Medical abortion can also be partly or fully administered by women themselves, thereby reducing the burden on health services.