Medicine & Doctors · Public health

Why the MTP Bill 2014 favors AYUSH docs and nurses as abortion providers

This was published in The Swaddle on September 3. Here is the link, and below is an extract.

“One way to do that is to expand the number of trained abortion practitioners. Women in India undergo unsafe abortions for several reasons, but a major factor is the unavailability of safe and legal abortion services in most non-urban regions and a general shortage of trained MBBS or ObGyn abortion providers. Non-physicians providing abortion services, especially medical (pharmacological) abortion, is a common policy in many countries. For example, nurse practitioners and physician assistants have been permitted to provide first-trimester abortions in Vietnam since 1945 and in South Africa since 1997; in France and Great Britain, medical abortion is largely supervised by nurses; and physician assistants have been permitted to carry out early abortions in the states of Montana and Vermont in USA since 1975. Experts believe that the policy in many countries of keeping abortion services in the jurisdiction of physicians only “has not kept up with technical innovation and is not only out-of-date but makes it more difficult for countries to provide highly accessible, quality abortion services at low cost.””

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