ANSIRH has teamed up with Gynuity Health Projects and Ibis Reproductive Health to develop a forward-looking research agenda focused on self-managed and demedicalized abortion in the United States. Media coverage and research data show a growing awareness of the option to self-manage (or self-induce or self-source) abortion outside of the formal health care system. At the same time, many in our field recognize that facility-based provision of medication abortion in the United States is overly medicalized.
Our research roadmap seeks to support people who self-manage abortion to do so safely and to generate critical evidence to remove unnecessary restrictions and provide medication abortion in user-friendly and accessible ways, with a focus on two complementary goals. The first is to understand better what women and all people who need access to abortion care in the United States are actually doing as they access medication abortion on their own, ensure that they are doing so safely, and explore ways to support people who self-manage their abortions. The second goal is to work toward demedicalizing care and expanding access to medication abortion within facility-based, legal medical services.
To read more about our roadmap for research, click here.