Abortion Access in Latin Migration Routes

At Ipas Central America and Mexico (CAM) we work to ensure that women and all people who can get pregnant have the correct information, feel supported in their decisions, and have the confidence to access safe abortion and contraceptive services when they need them. Our approach starts by centering on the individual, with the goal of achieving a better understanding of the complexity of the environment in which people make abortion decisions—or, as we call it, the abortion ecosystem. We are working toward the sustainability of the abortion ecosystem, a “dynamic condition in which resilient local stakeholders and systems are actively accountable and committed to abortion rights and responsive to everyone’s abortion needs.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the health, safety, and well-being of many people were threatened by the effects of the public health and economic crises that disproportionately affect women, especially those from historically underserved groups. Ipas CAM strengthened our efforts to respond directly to women’s needs during the pandemic, defend human rights, and support access to safe reproductive health care in a timely manner. Despite a significant reduction in sexual and reproductive health services reported in 2020, Ipas-supported health facilities provided 25,724 abortions and 46,837 contraceptive care methods. The abortion accompaniment networks we work with supported 498 women to self-manage their abortions with pills. To achieve these results, we targeted our actions using the eight components of the sustainable abortion ecosystem so that all people can make informed decisions and access abortion care that meets their needs. Some of our key results are as follows:

• We shared information with more than 40 million people on Facebook and 59,000 people on Instagram.
• Our posts on Twitter received almost 1,700,000 impressions.
• We increased online support to women seeking abortion information and accompaniment, from 129 in 2019 to 1,489 in 2020, and we responded to 402 women seeking information on sexual health and violence. We launched a new video on safe abortion with pills with Spanish and English voiceover and subtitles that describes how to terminate a pregnancy using misoprostol.
• The YouTube video surpassed one million views organically and received over 9,500 comments in just seven months. We shared the video with 9,968 people during a webinar with safe2choose, Hablemos de Sexo y Amor, and Hesperian Health Guides. Our participation in 141 media interviews was shared with 1,455,911 people.
• We trained and supported 46 members of nine safe abortion accompaniment networks from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua.
• We provided grants and technical assistance to 48 grassroots organizations with 9,269 members in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua. Through media outreach activities, organizations share information on sexual and reproductive health and rights with 1,088,228 people. Another 14,658 people were reached through workshops, meetings, and public events.
• Ipas CAM provided support to 10 grantees to develop 18 educational materials for community dissemination. To respond to COVID-19, we helped design and distribute face masks, bags, t-shirts, cups, and bottles of hand sanitizer with messages on sexual and reproductive rights.

Links:

• https://www.ipas.org/
• https://abortoenmipais.ipascam.org/
• https://ipascam.org/