My Body, My Voice: International Safe Abortion Day Briefing

To mark International Safe Abortion Day, MSI was delighted to launch our new 2019/20 My Body, My Voice report, alongside presentations from partners at Ipas and the Asia Safe Abortion Partnership at our International Safe Abortion Day briefing.

My Body, My Voice report

Globally, 1 in 4 pregnancies end in abortion. Yet, with abortion care stigmatised and silenced, we rarely hear from women and girls directly about their experiences. To help change this and identify how our services can improve, every year we interview 1,800+ of our safe abortion clients.
 
Whilst every experience is unique, these responses can help us to identify trends and potential solutions. Based on what our clients want and value, we learn how they hear about services, how they access them, and the support, or lack of it, experienced along the way.

Last year, we launched our first My Body, My Voice report, and this year, we are pleased to publish client insights from even more settings.

Our International Safe Abortion Day Briefing

To mark International Safe Abortion Day, we were pleased to hold a special briefing to launch the report.

Given the focus of this year's International Safe Abortion Day on self-management, the briefing showcased presentations from Ipas on innovations in self-care and the Asia Safe Abortion Partnership on the rights-based case for self-management, as well as learnings from MSI's new evidence summary on safe self-management of medical abortion.

Speakers included:

• Katy Footman, MSI’s Senior Research Manager on safe abortion and post-abortion care, presenting on key findings from MSI’s My Body, My Voice report
• Ntindah Luembe, MSI’s Regional Development Manager, East & Southern Africa, presenting on the evidence behind how we can support safe self-management of medical abortion with a continuum of care and her frontline experience from Zambia
• Rasha Dabash, Director of Technical Excellence at Ipas, presenting on Ipas’ innovations in supporting self-care through accompaniment models and telemedicine
• Suchitra Dalvie, Gynaecologist & Coordinator of the Asia Safe Abortion Partnership, presenting on the rights-based case for supporting self-management of abortion.

Watch the webinar in full below and download the slides here. Join the conversation over social media via #MyBodyMyVoice.

Resources mentioned:

• The virtual briefing launched our new report, My Body, My Voice: Women's views on abortion care, sharing insights from 1,800+ clients on how they access and experience safe abortion care and recommendations for ensuring high-quality access for all. Read the report here.
• The briefing also referenced MSI's cross-partner evidence brief, pulling together data and learnings on how women can be supported to access MA via a pharmacy safely. Access the brief via our safe abortion knowledge hub, SafeAccess.
• On the impact of COVID-19 on safe abortion access, and innovations to protect access during the pandemic and beyond, please refer to MSI's COVID-19 report, Resilience, Adaptation and Action.  
• For additional information on Ipas innovations and efforts to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 on abortion access, please visit their page on COVID-19.
• Finally, for further information on the work of the Asia Safe Abortion Partnership, please visit their website.

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Former Spotlight webinars include: 

• Delivering safe abortion in the time of Covid-19
• Securing supplies in insecure times  
• Choice in her hands: reproductive self-care during COVID-19
• Sex, Stigma & Young People: Challenging social norms to empower adolescents
• A Gendered Crisis: Ensuring SRHR for women facing violence under COVID-19
• MSI Briefing: The impact of COVID-19 on reproductive rights and access