HERA Action Sheets

>>Available in PDF / Available in Chinese, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish

FWCW Factsheets on Women's Health and Rights

>>Available in PDF at the links below

Summary: Set of 3 factsheets on reproductive health and rights, sexual health, and sexual rights, prepared for the Fourth World Conference on Women, 9 pages total.

Abortion Policy and Women's Health in Developing Countries

>>Available from IWHC

Summary: By Ruth Dixon Mueller (International Journal of Health Services, Vol. 20, No. 2, 1990, New York: Baywood Publishing). This paper, commissioned by IWHC, draws on presentations given at the IWHC-sponsored Christopher Tietze International Symposium, "Women's Health in the Third World: The Impact of Unwanted Pregnancies," Brazil, 1988 (17 pages).

To order a copy of this article, email Whitney Welshimer at wwelshimer@iwhc.org.

The international target of universal access to reproductive health is vital to the success of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and to the effective implementation of population, health, and development policies. Attaining sexual and reproductive health and rights for all requires an essential policy package, which originated at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and remains relevant today.

>>Available in HTML, Word, and PDF

>>Also available in French, Portuguese, and Spanish  

>>Available in PDF

>>Also available in French, Portuguese, and Spanish

Safe abortion—the termination of a pregnancy by trained health care providers using correct, sanitary technique and proper equipment—is a simple, lifesaving health service. Nonetheless, of the 42 million induced abortions each year, an estimated 20 million are unsafe and 97% of those occur in developing countries.  Every year, nearly 70,000 women die unnecessarily from the complications of unsafe abortions, and countless more suffer infections, infertility, and debilitating injuries.