Hesperian Health Guides
Preventing Unsafe Abortion
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| Family planning education can improve sexual and reproductive health in the community. |
Prevent illness and death from abortion in your community.
- Educate everyone in the community about how family planning can reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies. Get training to provide family planning services to anyone in your community who can become pregnant or cause pregnancy.
- Educate people about the dangers of unsafe abortion.
- Help the people in your community who do abortions get training to do them safely.
- Learn and teach others how to use pills to safely end pregnancies.
- Learn about the complications of abortion and what to do. Find out where to safely take someone for emergency treatment after an abortion.
- Find out who could transport people who need emergency care. If there is no emergency medical transport, is there someone in the community with a car or truck? Store extra containers of fuel (gas or petrol) for emergencies.
- Keep medicines to treat emergency abortion problems in a local pharmacy or clinic.
Encourage people who are sick to seek help after an abortion, not to hide from it.
If you are a health worker, here are some more suggestions:
- Keep pregnancy test strips and medicines needed for medical abortions on hand.
- Get trained in how to do MVA to help those who need abortions or care after an unsafe abortion. Perhaps health workers at your local hospital can get trained. Only do MVA if you have been trained and have the instruments to do it safely.
- Organize health workers in your community to talk with health authorities about the risks of unsafe abortion. Even where abortion is not legal, treatment for abortion complications should be available to save lives.
In community meetings to build support for post-abortion care, we discussed the dangers of unsafe abortions and how this care is not the same as an abortion. It took many meetings and discussions to gain the trust of local religious leaders. We began by discussing the benefits of family planning for married couples and then contraceptive use outside of marriage. This opened the door to discussing unintended pregnancy and the need for emergency care.
This page was updated:13 Nov 2023