2024-04-24 10:54:59
In a medical center in Paris which allows women to have an abortion by aspiration (or suction cup), without going to the hospital, on July 1, 2022. GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT / AFP
Specially trained midwives will now be able to perform instrumental voluntary termination of pregnancy (IVG) in health establishments under the same safety conditions as doctors, under a decree published Wednesday April 24 in Official newspaperwhich simplifies procedures, to promote access to abortion in the territory.
A first version of the decree, published in mid-December, was widely criticized by midwives’ organizations because it provided for conditions of practice “restrictive”going well beyond the safeguards currently required when the procedure is carried out by a gynecologist or a general practitioner.
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The December decree required the simultaneous presence in the establishment of a doctor specializing in orthogenics, an obstetrician-gynecologist, an anesthetist and an embolization tray (to manage extremely rare complications), conditions which meet only large maternity wards, those in university hospitals. These conditions also went beyond those required for childbirth, which is nevertheless more risky according to the professionals.
A first text deemed “counterproductive”
Midwives and associations fighting for women’s rights quickly denounced a text ” counter productive “going “ once morest its objectives”since it did not allow access to abortion to be developed in medical deserts.
The new decree removes these restrictive conditions. He “defines new conditions for training professionals and simpler organizational conditions”specifies the Ministry of Health in a press release. “The terms of care as well as the procedure in the event of complications will now be identical regardless of the professional carrying out the act of instrumental abortion, thereby fully recognizing the role and expertise of midwives”he continues.
“As long as they do it in an establishment which has authorization for this type of act, there is no need to have, alongside them, a doctor who, above their shoulder, would check what they would do”, Frédéric Valletoux argued on Wednesday on France Inter. This measure will “facilitate access” to abortion, while instrumental abortions represent approximately “20% of abortions performed” in France, he added.
Since 2016, midwives have already been able to perform medical abortion.
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