British, Swedes and Dutch Fund Abortion Pill Consortium Targeting Poor Countries

By Lisa Correnti | October 20, 2011

NEW YORK, October 20 (C-FAM) The chemical abortion pill, more formally referred to as medical or medication abortion, has received a major push by international reproductive rights groups particularly in geographic regions where abortion may be legally restricted or otherwise not accessible.

The International Consortium on Medical Abortion (ICMA) was formed in 2002 as an international network of organizations and individuals to promote worldwide access to chemical abortion pills through education, regional training and advocacy campaigns. The website is sponsored by the official development agencies of Sweden and the United Kingdom, and the Dutch Foreign Ministry.

A closer look at the consortium reveals a highly strategic effort to put abortifacient pills in the hands of all women who wish to obtain an abortion circumventing the laws of the countries in which they live.

ICMA’s Steering Committee is comprised of “expert” abortion rights advocates with representatives from Ibis Reproductive Health, Gynuity Health Projects, Reproductive Health Matters, the Concept Foundation and the World Health Organization.

The education outreach coming from ICMA focuses on the safety and efficacy of chemical abortions as a non-invasive and cost effective alternative to surgical abortions. The ICMA website explains to women the general ease of obtaining a medical abortion that can be done in the “comforts of her home.”

While there are three methods of chemical abortion being used worldwide, ICMA advances the use of misoprostol alone, for first trimester abortions, as the method of choice in countries where abortion is illegal and not easily accessible.

Misoprostol works by inducing labor causing uterine contractions and the thinning of the cervix, so as the website explains, the “products of pregnancy are expelled.” Severe side effects include uterine rupture and death.

Global access to misoprostol is widespread largely due to it being an “off-label” drug first registered as a medication to prevent gastric ulcers. Its low cost, easy storage capability, and the relative ease to dispense make it very attractive as an abortifacient made available for poor women in developing countries.

For women who live in countries where abortion is illegal, the ICMA website promotes access to misoprostol by explaining how it can be obtained and provides a link to online sales through Women on the Web.

In countries where abortion is illegal, ICMA suggests that women take misoprostol to start the abortion process and then go to a health clinic for further treatment, since post abortion care (PAC) is available in most countries where abortion is illegal.

Worldwide access to misoprostol was advanced in May, when the World Health Organization (WHO) added misoprostol to the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines. ICAM collaborating organization Gynuity Health Projects, and Venture Strategies Innovations (VSI) submitted the recommendation.

Not only did the WHO add misoprostol to the Essential Medicine List (EML) but it also put misoprostol on the EML core list giving it priority attention to be stockpiled in pharmacies and produced in dosages that can be more effectively used as an abortifacient.

ICMA and its affiliates have created a conduit for this abortifacient to reach women in countries that restrict abortion.  No doubt the factor that promoted the development of a strategic plan, or “toolkit” by ICMA sponsor, IPAS, to establish regional low-level health centers to administer misoprostol to women to carry out the abortion they started at home.

ICMA advances a pro-abortion agenda by messaging the imminent need to safeguard vulnerable women from “unsafe abortion,” however, the process of supplying women with abortifacient drugs to be self-administered is reckless, putting women at-risk, and warrants an international outcry.

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