Con la ley y sin la ley/With and without the law: Utilization of abortion services and case fatality in Mexico, 2000-2016

Improving measures of access to legal abortion: A validation study triangulating multiple data sources to assess a global indicator

BACKGROUND

Global mechanisms have been established to monitor and facilitate state accountability regarding the legal status of abortion. However, there is little evidence describing whether these mechanisms capture accurate data. Moreover, it is uncertain whether the "legal status of abortion" is a valid proxy measure for access to safe abortion, pursuant to the global goals of reducing preventable maternal mortality and advancing reproductive rights. Therefore, this study sought to assess the accuracy of reported monitoring data, and to determine whether evidence supports the consistent application of domestic law by health care professionals such that legality of abortion functions as a valid indicator of access.

METHODS AND FINDINGS

We conducted a validation study using three countries as illustrative case examples: Argentina, Ghana, and India. We compared data reported by two global monitoring mechanisms (Countdown to 2030 and the Global Abortion Policies Database) against domestic source documents collected through in-depth policy review. We then surveyed health care professionals authorized to perform abortions about their knowledge of abortion law in their countries and their personal attitudes and practices regarding provision of legal abortion. We compared professionals' responses to the domestic legal frameworks described in the source documents to establish whether professionals consistently applied the law as written. This analysis revealed weaknesses in the criterion validity and construct validity of the "legal status of abortion" indicator. We detected discrepancies between data reported by the global monitoring and accountability mechanisms and the domestic policy reviews, even though all referenced the same source documents. Further, provider surveys unearthed important context-specific barriers to legal abortion not captured by the indicator, including conscientious objection and imposition of restrictions at the provider's discretion.

CONCLUSIONS

Taken together, these findings denote weaknesses in the indicator "legal status of abortion" as a proxy for access to safe abortion, as well as inaccuracies in data reported to global monitoring mechanisms. This information provides important groundwork for strengthening indicators for monitoring access to abortion and for renewed advocacy to assure abortion rights worldwide.

Travelling for abortion services in Mexico 2016-2019: community-level contexts of Mexico City public abortion clients

OBJECTIVE

To describe the community context of women who travel to access Mexico City's public sector abortion programme and identify factors associated with travelling from highly marginalised settings.

METHODS

We used data from the Interrupción Legal de Embarazo (ILE) programme (2016-2019) and identified all abortion clients who travelled from outside Mexico City. We merged in contextual information at the municipality level and used descriptive statistics to describe ILE clients' individual characteristics and municipalities on several measures of vulnerability. We also compared municipalities that ILE clients travelled from with those where no one travelled from. We used logistic regression to identify factors associated with travelling to access ILE services from highly marginalised versus less marginalised municipalities.

RESULTS

Our sample included 21 629 ILE clients who travelled to Mexico City from 491 municipalities within all 31 states outside Mexico City. The majority of clients travelled from the least marginalised (81.9%) and most populated (over 100 000 inhabitants; 91.3%) municipalities. Most (91.2%) ILE clients came from municipalities with adolescent fertility rates in the bottom three quintiles. Clients with a primary or secondary education (vs high school or more) and those from a municipality with a high adolescent fertility rate (top two quintiles) had higher odds of travelling from a highly marginalised (vs less) municipality (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 1.46, 95% CI 1.35 to 1.58 and aOR 1.89, 95% CI 1.68 to 2.12, respectively).

CONCLUSION

ILE clients travel from geographically and socioeconomically diverse communities. There is an unmet need for legal abortion across Mexico.

“Sigue siendo un sistema precario”. Barreras de acceso a abortos clínicos: la experiencia de acompañantes en tres regiones mexicanas

El objetivo de esta investigación fue la identificación de las barreras más recurrentes de acceso a abortos en contextos clínicos (clandestinos o legales), desde la perspectiva de acompañantes, activistas feministas que acompañan a mujeres que optaron por abortos autogestionados con medicamentos. Realizamos 14 entrevistas semiestructuradas con acompañantes en tres regiones mexicanas: Baja California y Chiapas, ambos contextos restrictivos, y la Ciudad de México, donde el aborto por voluntad es legal hasta las 12 semanas. Identificamos cuatro categorías en las cuales se entretejen las vulnerabilidades sociales de las mujeres que deciden abortar, la falta de información, persistencia de estigma, y la influencia del marco legal, los fallos en la atención del aborto, incluso en las clínicas de interrupción legal de embarazo (en la Ciudad de México), y mala calidad de los servicios prestados -maltrato, objeción de conciencia y denuncia de los proveedores de salud-, y, por último, los grupos anti-derechos y sus estrategias. En las tres regiones, el acceso a abortos clínicos sigue siendo un privilegio reservado para las mujeres que cuentan con los recursos económicos, logísticos y sociales indispensables para realizarlo en esos espacios. La existencia de un programa Interrupción Legal de Embarazo en solamente una entidad denota la existencia de una desigualdad jurídica y sanitaria. Los hallazgos de este estudio sobre mujeres acompañantes de abortos aportan elementos para que el Estado mexicano mejore el acceso a abortos seguros para todas las mujeres, sobre todo ahora que la Suprema Corte de la Justicia de la Nación decretó la despenalización, y la legalización inminente en todo el país.

Relationship Between Abortion at First Pregnancy and Live Births by Young Adulthood: A Population-Based Study Among Mexican Women

STUDY OBJECTIVE

To identify factors associated with having an abortion (spontaneous or induced) at the time of first pregnancy, and to test the association between abortion in the first pregnancy and the number of live births among young women 20-24 years of age.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional study.

SETTING

We used a nationally representative survey of Mexican women 20-24 years of age with data at time of survey and retrospective measures of exposures in adolescence. We include 1913 women who reported ever having a pregnancy.

MAIN OUTCOMES

Our outcomes were history of abortion (spontaneous or induced) and number of live births by 20-24 years of age. We used multivariable logistic regression models to estimate the association between sociodemographic factors at the time of pregnancy and abortion history, and between abortion history and number of live births.

RESULTS

Among women 20-24 years of age who ever had a pregnancy, 15.5% reported an abortion in the first pregnancy, and 84.4% never had an abortion. Among women who had an abortion in the first pregnancy, 62.3% did not report any live birth by age 20-24 years. Young women living with their parents (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 1.87; confidence interval [CI] = 1.16-3.02) or with a partner with a higher educational level (AOR = 4.64; CI = 1.05-20.44) had greater odds of having an abortion in the first pregnancy. Compared with women who never had an abortion, women who reported an abortion in the first pregnancy had lower odds (AOR = 0.02; CI = 0.01-0.03) of having 1 or more children by the age of 20-24 years.

CONCLUSION

Young women who reported abortion in the first pregnancy had fewer live births at ages 20-24 years compared to women with no history of abortion.