International Pregnancy Advisory Services (Ipas)

Founded in 1973, Ipas is a global nongovernmental organization dedicated to ending preventable deaths and disabilities from unsafe abortion. Through local, national and global partnerships, Ipas works to ensure that women can obtain safe, respectful and comprehensive abortion care, including counseling and contraception to prevent future unintended pregnancies.

Transnational Policies

After the U.S. supreme court legalized abortion in 1973, two laws were created which impacted abortion policies around the world and led to the conception of the Ipas organization. The  Hyde Amendment enacted in 1976 was a domestic measure which prohibited Medicaid from subsidizing any services related to abortion. In addition,  the Helms Amendment to the U.S Foreign Assistance act denies the allocation of U.S. funds abroad to not only the very performance of abortion but also restricts the dissemination of information and counseling in U.S. funded clinics and facilities. (2)

Advocacy

Ipas engages with these limitations as they continually work with partners around the world on a variety of levels to reform these laws and bring comprehensive reproductive and abortion services into the health care systems. Specifically within Mexico, Ipas assisted in the passing of the 2007 Mexico City decriminalization abortion law by working alongside activists and other legislators and by "training medical and legal professionals, helping hospitals obtain high-quality reproductive health equipment, advocating for public policies that improve care and increase women’s access to abortion and creating a new generation of activists and medical professionals who treat women with respect and are well-trained in sexual and reproductive rights issues" (1) in areas outside of Mexico City as well.

Community Engagement 

As an organization whose objectives revolve around engagement with communities abroad, Ipas identifies the barriers towards abortion and health care in order to build upon their current systems and provide accurate information and knowledge to them, which enable individuals to make safer more informed decisions. In order to do so they build partnerships with local and national communities to address their needs and concerns. In collaborating with various outside organizations, institutions and communities Ipas is able to launch several innovative programs that build networks transnationally in order to achieve the goal of improved abortion and health care systems.  

___________________________________________________________________________________________

 Contact Information 

P.O. Box 9990

Chapel Hill, NC 27515 USA

phone: 919.967.7052

800.334.8446 (toll-free in US)

fax: 919.929.0258 

(1) "Who We Are." Ipas | Health. Access. Rights. Accessed April 2016. http://www.ipas.org/.

(2) "Foreign Policy." Helms Amendment  |  U.S. Foreign Policy & Funding  |  The Issues  |  CHANGE. Accessed April 2016. http://www.genderhealth.org/the_issues/us_foreign_policy/helms/.