“Self-Care” that Harms and Kills: The WHO’s Push to “Demedicalize” Abortion

Dec 29, 2021 by

By Alexis I. Fragosa and Rebecca Oas, C-Fam:

The concept of “self-care” to support good health is not new.  From good nutrition and hygiene to the self-administration of over-the-counter drugs to the self-management of long-term conditions through prescribed medication, individuals and families around the world are making use of information and products that can improve their health while reducing or avoiding the need to visit clinics and consult directly with doctors.

In recent years, the World Health Organization (WHO) has increasingly advocated for the use of self-care in the field of “sexual and reproductive health and rights,” including for abortion.  Unlike other forms of self-administered health care, which seeks to balance the ability of patients to manage their own treatments and the need for and availability of medical professionals, the WHO is explicitly using the framework of “self-care” to bypass legal restrictions on abortion and make access to it the highest priority.

This Definitions examines how the rubric of “self-care” is being used to remove or bypass all safety and legal guardrails around abortion, how the COVID-19 pandemic has been utilized to accelerate this agenda, and how the groundwork has been carefully laid to ensure that access to abortion is ubiquitous regardless of the law—all with support from the UN’s global health agency.

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