Pathfinder International is pleased to announce the release of three new publications produced in conjunction with our one-year, eight-country Youth-Friendly Postabortion Care (YFPAC) Project.
Saving Young Lives: Pathfinder International's Youth-Friendly Postabortion Care Project, October 2008 This report shares Pathfinder's recent experience implementing the Youth-Friendly Postabortion Care (YFPAC) Project in eight African countries; it contains program descriptions, an overview of the process of making PAC services youth-friendly, key results, challenges, lessons learned, and recommendations.
Assessment of Youth-Friendly Postabortion Care Services: A Global Tool for Assessing Postabortion Care for Youth, October 2008 This tool is designed to help project managers, supervisors, and providers collect detailed information on the quality of postabortion care services provided to adolescents at a given facility in order to make postabortion care services more youth friendly. The tool can also be used to gather essential baseline information, allowing for repeated applications to measure progress and impact of program interventions.
Pathfindings: Youth-Friendly Postabortion Care Services in Africa, October 2008 A summary of evaluation findings from Pathfinder's Youth-Friendly Postabortion Care Project implemented in eight African countries.
All three documents can be downloaded here:
http://www.pathfind.org/Pubs_Adolescents. Hard copies are available by contacting tech-comm@pathfind.org. Please forward this message to colleagues who may be interested in this information.
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Mary Burket
mailto:MBurket@pathfind.org
Dear Mary,
I would think it better to have an abstinence program rather than a way of making abortion more compatible to children. Aborting children and trying to make it more palatable to the masses by taking super care of them will only make the children want to get pregnant again to get all the perks and special care etc that your program seems to be encouraging. It is wrong.
Who's doing all the abortions?
Craig
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Craig Audiss
malto:cybrcollectinc@yahoo.com
Dear Mary,
I also have a similar view like Craig about post abortion care. Is the one doing this programme of post abortion care thinking about HIV/AIDS! I appreciate the care for a child to save her life but we should think of the multiplier effect that this programme is gonna bring. Girl children will think that it is ok to become pregnant and abort after all their lives will be saved. This will for sure not be a good generation!
What about these innocent unborn being thrown away who would also want to be like their mothers? Lucky Dube's song says that a child who is aborted goes in the ditch saying, 'maama why do you destroy me, maama what have I done to you, I deserve to live like anybody else'. I wish you could publish such messages to the girl children!
I wish you could also have abstinence publications and show clearly the disadvantages and problems involved in becoming pregnant for a girl child e.g. HIV/AIDS, loss of life during abortion, illiteracy etc.
I think this is right service to a wrong group!
Jenipher Twebaze
Child Health and Development Centre
Makerere University
Uganda
mailto:Jenipher.Twebaze@anthro.ku.dk
The evidence-base for the effectiveness of abstinence programs, if one looks honestly at the scientific literature, is currently very weak.
The idea that children and adolescents will want to get pregnant, in order to have an abortion, in order to access post-abortion services, has no evidence base either. This is just armchair psychology and sociology. Worse, it is insulting to girls and young women who become pregnant through no fault of their own through non-consensual sex. What's next? That there ought to be no HIV-related services, because people will then want to put themselves at risk of getting HIV, in order to 'enjoy' HIV services? Same with TB? Malaria? It is not just that this line of thinking has no credibility, it is downright demeaning. It takes people in some vulnerable, really terrible situations, and tries to depict them as conniving and opportunist.
While sex education and contraception can reduce unwanted pregnancy among youth, and should be encouraged, there will always be instances where unwanted pregnancies occur, and where abortion may be the least worst option. When that happens, it is good that there are appropriate services for youth.
Stuart Rennie
Research Assistant Professor (Bioethics)
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
mailto:Stuart_rennie@unc.edu
I fully agree with Stuart, and he couldn't have said this better! There is a need for all of us to be ejected from our 'high judgmental seats' where we seem to know what other people need or do not need. Why is it so difficult to realize that Post-abortion care services are like any other health care services without us trying to dictate who should get these services? Should we emphasize the rights of women (regardless of their age) to bear or not to bear children - either through planned or unplanned pregnancies?
All these should not be seen as undermining the preventive and capacity building efforts on delaying sex, abstinence, condom use, etc. but as a way to support those who find themselves in such situations without judging them. People who oppose the provision of post-abortion care services may want to start by dealing with rape, incest, forced marriages, and instances where women and girls are coerced into all sorts of things; and if all of these are erased from the face of the world, then we can start the debate on whether or not to provide these services.
Thank you,
Puleng Letsie
Regional Coordinator: Country Support & Development
Southern African AIDS Trust (SAT)
Suite 293 Dunkeld West Centre, 281 Jan Smuts Avenue, Dunkeld West
PO Box 411919, Craighall Park, 2024, Johannesburg, RSA
Web: http://www.satregional.org
mailto:letsie@satregional.org
Supporting Community Responses to HIV and AIDS in Southern Africa