Theme 2020: Telemedicine, self-managed abortion and access to abortion in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic Hashtag: #IManageMyAbortion
This year’s International Safe Abortion Day is about challenging the barriers women face in both health systems and law and policy when they seek a safe abortion. This year’s theme pushes the envelope. Abortion methods have been greatly simplified since most abortion laws were framed, yet abortions are still taking place in unnecessarily regimented and over-medicalised conditions. It’s time to leave all that behind.
One hundred years ago, in 1920, the Soviet Union passed the first-ever law that made abortion legal, under the aegis of the first People’s Commissar for Social Welfare, Alexandra Kollantai. Remembering her, we urge you to write to your government and call on them to step up and make unsafe, illegal abortions history.
We call on all States to acknowledge, in line with the World Health Organization, that abortion is essential health care, and to recognise that telemedicine and self-managed abortion are evidence-based options for delivering safe abortion services during Covid-19 and going forward. We call on all States to be accountable for protecting the health, lives and well-being of women with unwanted pregnancies. Universal access to safe abortion should be guaranteed by every State as part of comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care, leaving no one behind.
TAKING ACTION
We hope you have already begun planning your activities for this year. A toolkit for organisers, prepared by the 28 September working group, will be available soon. There will be an international Twitter storm from 14-28 September. There will also be a form on the Campaign website nearer the date for you to report your activities, after they have taken place. Watch this space!
