ARTH is one of the eight members of the Consortium for Safe Abortion in India, which works towards increasing access to legal, safe and comprehensive abortion care services in the public health system, focusing on the rural poor.
In October 2006, ARTH worked with the Medical, Health and Family Welfare Department, Rajasthan to “assist it on systemic, resource, administrative and legal issues to increase access to safe and legal abortions in the public and private sectors”. Data was collected from all the districts of the State to review the status of implementation of the MTP Act in the districts. Data on MTP certification process, MTP reporting, currently available MTP trained providers, functioning of the district level MTP committee and status of PCPNDT implementation was collected. The collected data was used to plan measures along with the State government to improve access to safe abortion services within the provisions of the MTP Act.
Data from April 2007 to March 2010 was collected, compared and documented, and shared with the Department of Medical Health & Family Welfare, Government of Rajasthan. An MIS for reporting about MTPs at district level and from district to state headquarters was developed. Besides supporting and advocating with the government sector, we did a series of workshops with NGOs. Till March 2010, 3 residential trainings and 5 one-day trainings with local NGOs were conducted. We prepared a series of posters, brochures and a documentary film on the issue of safe abortion and sex selection to strengthen the advocacy campaign.