2023-12-17 15:49:47
Until now, instrumental abortions could only be performed by doctors. They are allowed up to 14 weeks of pregnancy.
The announcement appeared in the Official Journal (JO). From this Sunday, December 17, midwives can perform instrumental voluntary terminations of pregnancy (IVGs) in health establishments.
The news was welcomed by the Minister of Health Aurélien Rousseau on X (formerly Twitter) who sees it as “concrete progress for a right to be protected every day”.
According to the ministry’s website, instrumental abortion “consists of aspirating the contents of the uterus after dilation of the cervix”. The procedure can be performed under local or general anesthesia and only lasts around ten minutes.
Until now, only doctors were authorized to perform this type of abortion. The objective, for the Ministry of Health, is to respond to the “difficulties of access” to abortion for many women. It will require these midwives to be trained in this technique.
Tested in pilot establishments
Voted in the law of March 2022 aimed at strengthening the right to abortionthis new skill was tested for a little over a year in 26 pilot establishments.
“It goes well everywhere I go,” assured the Minister responsible for Equality between women and men, Bérangère Couillard, during a visit Tuesday to one of the first pilot establishments, the hospital of the Pitié Salpêtrière in Paris.
Like doctors, midwives will be able to perform these instrumental abortions up to 16 weeks of amenorrhea, or 14 weeks of pregnancy, as voted by parliamentarians. A first draft decree, which reduced this deadline, was criticized at the end of November by midwives’ unions.
The Ministry of Health also announced in a press release that it had “decided to increase by 25% the prices paid to health establishments for carrying out abortions, which had not been reviewed since 2016 and were significantly lower than the costs incurred by the establishments for this activity”.
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