AFRO-NETS> New Publications from Ipas

[Merrill Wolf <WolfM@ipas.org>]

New Publications from Ipas
--------------------------

Ipas is pleased to announce several new publications related to im-
proving women's ability to exercise their sexual and reproductive 
rights and to reducing abortion-related maternal mortality and mor-
bidity worldwide:

** Making safe abortion accessible: A practical guide for advocates **

This 68-page handbook offers direction to activists working to ensure 
that abortions permitted by law are safe and accessible, in accor-
dance with international mandates. It reviews key steps in successful 
abortion-rights advocacy campaigns, including: envisioning needed 
changes in abortion services; building and managing effective part-
nerships for advocacy; increasing awareness of the need for change 
among a variety of audiences; and helping prepare the health system 
and related sectors to offer safe abortion. The guide is adaptable to 
diverse settings, prompting readers to develop the most appropriate 
strategies for their own context. In English. 
Full text online at:
http://www.ipas.org
Hard copies are available free of charge.


--

** A guide to providing abortion care **

Based on Ipas's global experience developing, implementing and moni-
toring abortion and post-abortion care programs, this comprehensive 
82-page manual gives readers tools needed to establish and improve 
abortion services. Intended audiences include program managers, 
clinic managers, health care providers and policymakers. Chapter top-
ics are: assessing needs; planning for change in service delivery; 
training abortion care providers; providing services; and monitoring 
and evaluating programs. The guide can be used in its entirety or in 
part, adapted to individual sites' and health systems' needs. Also 
provided are checklists, forms and a other tools to aid program plan-
ning and implementation. In English. 
Full text online at:
http://www.ipas.org
Hard copies are available free of charge.


--

** Filling the gap: Introducing innovative second-trimester abortion 
services in Vietnam **

The latest issue of Ipas's Dialogue series reports on the Vietnamese 
Ministry of Health's strategic response to a critical gap in women's 
health care. After a national assessment conducted with the World 
Health Organization revealed that Vietnamese women face significant 
obstacles obtaining abortions after the 12th week of pregnancy, the 
Ministry of Health collaborated with Ipas to design, test and intro-
duce a resource-appropriate technique for second-trimester abortion. 
The innovative procedure -- which combines dilatation and evacuation 
(D&E) with manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) and buccal administration 
of misoprostol for cervical preparation -- has proved to be an appro-
priate and safe procedure and has begun to fill a harmful gap in re-
productive health services. The systems approach used to introduce 
the new procedure offers important lessons for other settings where 
safe, effective services for second-trimester abortion are lacking. 
In English and Spanish. 
Hard copies are available free of charge.


--

** A handbook for advocacy in the African human rights system: Advanc-
ing reproductive and sexual health ** 

Prepared by eminent legal scholars under the auspices of the Interna-
tional Programme on Reproductive and Sexual Health Law at the Univer-
sity of Toronto, this 193-page manual aims to facilitate use of Af-
rica's human rights system to promote and protect reproductive and 
sexual health. A rich resource for women's health and rights advo-
cates working in Africa, it provides an overview of the context of 
reproductive and sexual health in Africa; an introduction to the Af-
rican regional human rights system; "how to" information on using the 
African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights; background on the 
Commission's casework relevant to advocacy; and basic human rights 
documents of the African human rights system, as well as other inter-
pretive documents. In English. 
Available online at:
http://www.ipas.org
Limited hard copies are available free of charge and can be requested 
from the Ipas African Regional Office at <admin@ipas.or.ke>


--

** Preventing unsafe abortion: A call to action for health profession-
als **

Health associations and individual health professionals can provide 
leadership in bringing awareness to the public health crisis of un-
safe abortion. This four-page fact sheet provides advocates in the 
health care field with the necessary background to speak about the 
issue and advocate for change in restrictive abortion laws and poli-
cies. It contains basic facts and key statements from the medical 
community and United Nations bodies on actions that prevent deaths 
from unsafe abortion. In English and Spanish.
Full text online at:
http://www.ipas.org
Hard copies are available free of charge.


--

** Contruyendo el acceso de las mujeres a los servicios de 
interrupción legal del embarazo en los casos de violación (Building 
women's access to abortion services in cases of rape) **

Developed by Ipas-Mexico and the Secretariat of Health in Mexico 
City, this 6-page bulletin summarizes a strategy for equipping fa-
cilities in general and Maternal/Child Health hospitals to provide 
abortion for legal indications and key experiences to date implement-
ing this strategy in Mexico City. The article includes results of a 
questionnaire surveying various hospital-based health care providers' 
knowledge and opinions about legal abortion and violence, as well as 
inquiring about their training and experiences related to these sub-
jects. Finally, the bulletin describes a comprehensive health care 
model for women who are victims of violence. In Spanish.
Full text online at:
http://www.ipas.org 
Hard copies are available free of charge.


--
For additional information about these or any other Ipas publica-
tions,
mailto:Ipas_Publications@ipas.org
Tel: +1-919-960-5705

And please feel free to share this announcement with others! 

--
Ipas is a global nongovernmental organization that has worked for 
nearly three decades to increase women's ability to exercise their 
sexual and reproductive rights and to reduce abortion-related deaths 
and injuries. The agency's programmatic activities include training, 
research, technology distribution and policy advocacy.

--
Merrill Wolf
mailto:WolfM@ipas.org

--
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