Midwives will be authorized to practice instrumental abortion in health establishments, via a decree which will be published no later than Thursday, which will make it possible to fight “against the difficulties of access” to abortion in certain territories, the government announced on Tuesday. “Beyond the capacity given to them to perform medical abortions since 2016, this new skill constitutes a strong response to the difficulties of access” greets the Minister of Health Aurélien Rousseau in a press release.
26 pilot establishments
Voted in the March 2022 law aimed at strengthening the right to abortion, this new skill was tested for a little over a year in 26 pilot establishments. “It goes well everywhere I go”, and on the ground the professionals “are ready”, rejoiced to AFP the Minister in charge of Equality between women and men, Bérangère Couillard, during the a visit on Tuesday to one of the first pilot establishments, the Pitié Salpêtrière hospital in Paris.
“The final discussions are underway” on the details of the decree, which must in particular specify the necessary training and the conditions of exercise, she said. The text will appear no later than Thursday, the end date of the experiment. “We will give the right to all midwives who are trained (…) I hope that there will be many of them, to be able to overcome” the difficulties, because “there are certain territories where today abortion is not “is not possible because there is a lack of practitioners”, underlined the minister, citing Mayenne in particular.
Practice authorized up to 14 weeks of pregnancy
Midwives, like doctors, will be able to perform these instrumental abortions up to 16 weeks of amenorrhea, or 14 weeks of pregnancy, as voted by parliamentarians, she promised. A first draft decree, which reduced this deadline, was criticized at the end of November by midwives’ unions. “I have been seeing women requesting an abortion for ten years in consultations and often the women asked me ‘will you be on the day of the surgery?’ I am very happy to be able to tell them ‘it will be me’ because there is global support”, declared Delphine Giraud, midwife coordinator of the “women’s house” at Pitié Salpêtrière.
Before, when the doctor usually responsible for instrumental abortions went on leave, “it was complicated, we had to mobilize other doctors, undress other sectors”, said Professor Marc Dommergues, head of the gynecology-obstetrics department. “It allows organizational flexibility” and “it was completely accepted” by the patients. The Ministry of Health also “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 borne by the establishments for this activity,” he said in his press release. These announcements come on the day when the constitutional bill relating to the freedom to resort to voluntary termination of pregnancy was presented to the Council of Ministers.