Updated Consensus Statement Emphasizes Joint Commitment to Including Family Planning in Postabortion Care
November 2013
Calling for a renewed commitment to the health of women following abortion (induced or spontaneous), the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO), International Confederation of Midwives (ICM), International Council of Nurses (ICN), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), White Ribbon Alliance (WRA), Department for International Development (DFID), and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have issued a joint consensus statement on the importance of family planning service provision to women when they are treated for postabortion complications.The statement commits the endorsing organizations to ensure that voluntary family planning counseling and services are included as an essential component of postabortion care in all settings, empower and serve postabortion women of all ages to prevent unintended pregnancies and further abortions, and provide information on optimal pregnancy spacing for those women who want a pregnancy. It lays out the rationale for offering family planning to women in such circumstances and reviews the intervention approaches that can be followed.
The RESPOND Project, managed by EngenderHealth, led the process of finalizing the consensus statement. We work with such organizations as FIGO, ICM, and ICN, which provide technical and normative guidance to health care providers and other institutions worldwide, to strengthen their members’ medical competence, raise global standards for midwifery and nursing education and regulation, and increase their capacity to advocate, promote, and support member efforts to provide family planning. The endorsing bodies will share responsibility for widely disseminating the statement, through their headquarters’ web sites; through the member association offices of FIGO (124 professional societies of obstetricians and gynecologists), of ICM (99 member associations in 88 countries), and of ICN (13 million nurses worldwide, from 130 national nursing associations); and at international conferences.
We invite you to download the statement (PDF, 2 MB)