Abortion hotline launch in Peru supported by Women on Waves

Press release: 28 TH OF MAY, 2010

A public hotline giving women information about safe abortion using pills Misoprostol, was launched in Lima, Peru yesterday on may 27 th, 2010,

http://abortoinfosegura.com/blog/

The hotline was launched by the Colectivo para la Libre Información de las Mujeres (CLIM), or Collective for Free Information for Women, a feminist organization dedicated to democratizing vital health information. The hotline is supported by Women on Waves (Netherlands) and is one of similar initiatives that Women on Waves has supported in Ecuador, Argentina, and Chile in the past two years.

Press inquiries in Peru: 00511997444539

Women needing help in Peru: 01-945411951

Press inquiries Women on Waves: +31652052561

To follow to activities surrounding the launch, please visit the Women on Waves website: www.womenonwaves.org/set-2212-en.html

Further information:

Many women do not have access to safe abortion services as they are legally restricted in most countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. As a result 1 in every 300 women who have an unsafe abortion die unnecessarily: 70,000 women each year. Many more women suffer long-term complications such as infertility and chronic pain. Peru has one of the highest rates of abortion in Latin America, about 352,000 clandestine abortions per year.
Maternal mortality caused by unsafe abortion can be prevented if women themselves have information and access to a medicine called misoprostol. Misoprostol has been on the list of essential medicines of the WHO since 2005. Misoprostol is cheap, widely available, heat resistant, and can be kept for years. Misoprostol can be used to induce a safe abortion, treat an incomplete miscarriage, prevent and treat heavy bleeding after giving birth, and induce birth. Misoprostol is available around the world for treatment of gastric ulcers. Misoprostol can easily be used by women themselves at home without supervision of health professionals to cause an abortion (3 doses of 4 tablets of 200 mcg under the tongue every 3 hours). Abortion using misoprostol has been shown to be safe and 85-90% effective if taken during the first 9 weeks of pregnancy. It is far safer than the unsafe surgical or traditional abortion methods that women will use when desperately trying to end an unwanted pregnancy and has the same health impact as a spontaneous miscarriage. Usually a miscarriage is handled by women themselves without additional medical supervision. Woman who do need further medical attention because of an incomplete abortion can easily be treated by any doctor. Follow-up treatment for miscarriage and even post abortion care is available and legal everywhere. A woman can report to a doctor saying she has had a miscarriage. Making information about the most effective regimens of misoprostol for safe abortion easily available to women themselves can save women?s lives. It gives women the possibility to take their health and lives in their own hands irrespective of the availability or willingness of doctors or the legality of abortion in their country.

Women who live in a country where there is no access to safe  abortion services and can not obtain misoprostol can get support by Women on Web www.womenonweb.org.