ICM Joins the Call to Protect Abortion Care Providers

On International Women Human Rights Defenders Day, ICM joins partners in calling for strengthened protections for those defending abortion rights and providing essential abortion care. Together, we’re launching a new resource: Key Principles and Actions to Safeguard Abortion Care Providers as Human Rights Defenders.

This resource, created alongside Amnesty International, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), Ipas, MSI Reproductive Choices, the Organisation pour le Dialogue pour l’Avortement Sécurisé (ODAS Centre), and the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO), is a guide for governments to help protect healthcare professionals and human rights defenders who often face harassment, intimidation, and even violence. It’s a way to ensure that people providing abortion care—like midwives, obstetricians and gynaecologists (OBGYNs), and nurses—can continue their critical work safely and without fear.

The Key Principles suggest practical actions for governments, including:

• Prevent violations by implementing specific protection protocols and establishing channels to report harassment and receive support;
• Enable defenders to exercise their rights without fear by ensuring universal access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health, and decriminalizing abortion – as reinforced by the WHO’s Abortion guidelines;
• Safeguard defenders’ rights by protecting civic space and tackling abortion stigma;
• Provide redress, by stopping the criminalization of abortion defenders, and by bringing to justice those who attack them;