Problem Analysis: The rising trend in unsafe abortion is a major health and social concern in Sri Lanka. The law governing abortion is very restrictive, only permitting for cases where pregnancy/child birth is life threatening to the mother. However, despite legal restrictions, abortions are performed in large numbers, mostly by untrained persons in secret, under very unhygienic conditions.

Woman with unwanted pregnancies have little option but to resort to clandestine and often unsafe and unhygienic environments. It is estimated that around 650 cases of abortions are taking place in a day in Sri Lanka. This is almost equal to the number that is getting added to the population in a single day.

Strategic Direction: FPASL will increase capacity of staff and volunteer to highlight the social justice and health impact of unsafe abortion by gathering baseline data to support development of advocacy and learning tools for use with media and key decision makers.

Goal: The right of access to safe legal abortion and a reduced incidence of unsafe abortion.

Objectives

• To raise awareness among the community and policy makers to the health social impact unsafe abortions in Sri Lanka.
• To advocate for the safe abortion services in Sri Lanka.

Activities Objective 1: To raise awareness among the community and policy makers to the health social impact unsafe abortions in Sri Lanka.

• Undertake mapping exercise of key groups and organizations involved in improving the health of women (e.g. Ministry of Women’s Affairs, College of Ob/Gyn, etc.) and conduct research studies/surveys to generate the data on health sequel of unsafe abortion e.g. MMR; the root causes of abortion, reasons for non use of contraception, especially by married women, attitude of different segments of society to liberalization of abortion in Sri Lanka.
• Conduct baseline, mid and endline surveys to asses KABP of key stakeholders
• Initiate a pilot project at 3 service delivery points, to provide pre and post abortion counselling services, and referral to suitable health care facilities for those needing specialized post abortion care.

Objective 2: To advocate for the liberalization of the current law pertaining to abortion.

• Build capacity of FPA staff and volunteers to advocate for action against unsafe abortion and lobby for changes in the current abortion laws
• Develop advocacy tools to work with the media in securing public support on impact of unsafe abortions and the need for changes to the law within a sexual and reproductive and rights and women’s empowerment framework
• Disseminate collected data on the dangers of unsafe abortion at seminars, roundtable discussions, media talk shows etc, for parliamentarians, religious leaders, women’s group, the media and other opinion leaders.

Outcomes and Indicators: