Safe Abortion
Overview
Every year, more than 25 million avoidable unsafe abortions occur. Legal restrictions and a lack of safe options mean that women and adolescent girls unnecessarily risk their health and lives every day. At PSI, we believe that everyone has a right to safe and legal abortion services, products and information, as well as post-abortion care and contraception.
How we
work
The Four Pillars of our Work in
Safe Abortion








We engage in policy dialogue and advocacy around safe abortion and post-abortion care.
Our
Impact
In 2018, PSI’s safe abortion and post-abortion care programs achieved the following impact:
Active in more than
20
countries
Approximately
2 million
women reached
Over
150,000
medication abortion and manual vacuum aspiration services provided
An estimated
6,000
maternal deaths prevented
Our Solutions
PSI helped catalyze the misoprostol market in Tanzania by launching and supporting its first widely available brand of misoprostol. After just a few years, the market went from having an inconsistent supply dominated by one player to having several players compete with high quality, affordably priced products. Now, with the urban market well served, we are pivoting to last mile distribution in rural areas.
PSI is innovating with technology to facilitate referrals and collect feedback to improve the client experience. PSI Cambodia developed a smartphone app that facilitates referrals between pharmacies and clinics for onward client care and post-abortion contraception. In other countries, PSI uses popular communication channels like WhatsApp to help shepherd eligible women through the health system for abortion and post-abortion care.
In several regions, PSI social enterprises are improving medication abortion sustainability through regional sales operations that offer economies of scale and operate against a double-bottom line that measures health impact and cost recovery.
PSI engages with the public sector in many of the countries in which we work. For example, in Angola, we supported public sector providers in several hospitals to deliver treatment for more than 1,500 post-abortion care cases each month.
Featured Projects

Self-Care Trailblazers Group
Donor: Children’s Investment Fund Foundation; The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Women’s Health Project (WHP)
Donor: Anonymous

Piloting an Accompaniment Model to Support Women During Medication Abortion
Donor: The David and Lucille Packard Foundation

Innovative Models for Medication Abortion Marketing and Distribution
Donor: The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Advancing Sexual and Reproductive Health in Niger, Mali and Côte d’Ivoire
Donor: Global Affairs Canada
Our
Experts

Andrea Fearneyhough
Director, Safe Abortion Programming PSI Global
Dr. Eva Lathrop
Global Medical Director PSI Global
James Ayers
Deputy Director, Safe Abortion Programming PSI
Dr. Milly Kaggwa
Senior Clinical Advisor for Africa PSI
Dr. Dorine Irankunda
Francophone/Lusophone Clinical Advisor, Women's Health Project PSILatest
Updates
Discover what's happening at PSI

Post-Abortion Care Training… on Zoom
By Dr. Suleiman Alhaji Usman, Clinical Services Manager, PSI Nigeria and Jamee Kuznicki, Senior Associate Project Manager, PSI In 2012 (most recent data), 212,000 women in Nigeria received medical treatment for complications related

A Safe Abortion in Her Hands
by Maria Dieter, Associate Content Manager, PSI @MariaDeets Ritika Yadav* sat facing her husband, Pradip. They were mid- conversation, speaking quietly as they sat in

Learn Where Self Care and Healthcare Intersect
by Sandy Garcon, Senior Manager, Advocacy & Communications, PSI On April 2nd, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and BMJ Global Health launched a series of articles focused on self

A Call to Action in the Age of #MeToo
By Dázon Dixon Diallo, DHL, MPH, Founder and CEO, SisterLove Inc. In 2006, human rights activist Tarana Burke launched the me too Movement ™ through