About Us
The Goal
We seek innovative and transformative approaches that put women, girls and people with diverse sexual and gender identities in control of where, when, and how they terminate their pregnancy, in countries where there are one or more legal grounds to support it. Our focus is to support the testing and development of:
1. New or improved approaches to increasing early access to existing abortion products and services in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and
2. Next-generation methods of pregnancy termination, menses induction or conception interruption
Why it Matters
Unsafe abortion has a profound impact on women, girls and people with diverse sexual and gender identities.
More than 25 million unsafe abortions take place each year (almost half of the total number of abortions performed), forcing 7 million women and girls to seek treatment for complications. Roughly 27,000 women and girls die each year from unsafe abortion, making it one of the leading global causes of (preventable) maternal mortality. Unsafe abortion occur almost entirely (97%) in developing countries, often driven by limited access and the need to pursue clandestine care (source). Most abortion-related deaths and disabilities can be prevented with comprehensive sexuality education, access to effective contraception, safe and legal abortion services, and prompt care for complications. Beyond the deaths and disabilities caused by unsafe abortion, there are major social and financial costs to women, families, communities and health systems.
Access to existing methods
While a handful of safe abortion methods are at our disposal, these methods are often not within reach when, where and how they are needed. Legal provisions are not enough to create meaningful choice or access. The legal status of abortion in a given country also does not significantly affect the rate of abortion — only the ability to access safe abortion methods has a meaningful impact (source). A complex web of regulatory, policy, programmatic, and socio-economic factors create barriers that put lives at risk. At the individual level, these barriers can include stigma and discrimination from health workers and community members, harmful gender norms that limit decision making rights, mandatory service steps intended to delay care, the absence of services in rural areas requiring long and costly travel, and more.
Expanding the variety of methods
Even when individuals can access safe abortion services, their options are limited. The last major innovation in the field occurred over 40 years ago, with the development of mifepristone in the early 1980s. The lack of research and development in pregnancy termination stands in stark contrast to advancements in other scientific fields such as HIV and malaria, and even compared to other areas of reproductive health such as contraception. There are presently only three methods of pregnancy termination: dilation and curettage (D&C), vacuum aspiration, and medical abortion (pill form). While effective, these current approaches do not represent the variety required to meet the range of needs of women at different phases of life, geographic locations, socioeconomic statuses, or to provide sufficient privacy.
Click here for a two-page overview of the OPTions Initiative.
The Portfolio at a Glance
Methods
- Self Care: provision of supportive, self-managed medical abortion in non-clinical settings, with or without accompaniment support.
- Facility Service Delivery: at least one in-person visit to a health facility or a professional for a prescription, management of medical abortion, or a surgical abortion
- Market Development: building supply and/or demand for safe abortion products through supply chain innovation, advocacy, and awareness-building
- Telehealth and Task-Shifting: crosscutting themes seen in access innovation
- New Drugs: novel drug discovery through the identification of targets and/or research of compounds for pregnancy termination, menses induction or conception interruption
- Reformed Drugs: off-label use or reclassification of existing drugs for abortion through research and/or regulatory means
- Devices: improvements in surgical or other equipment that contribute to the safe abortion process
The Role of Innovation
The OPTions Initiative exists to support innovators working to positively transform the safe abortion landscape, through improved access and next generation methods. Innovation allows for the development and testing of new approaches to a persistent and unsolved challenge. Integrated scientific/technological, social, and business innovation — known as Integrated Innovation — can also increase the chance of going to scale to achieve global impact and sustainability.
Support for innovation is particularly important in safe abortion, where persistent barriers require creative, bold and courageous solutions to catalyze change. The OPTions Initiative plays an important role in the sector by:
- Taking risks to test new access innovations and walking the journey with these innovators toward the longer-term and often more challenging goal of achieving sustainability at scale.
- Advancing research and development (R&D) in safe abortion as a persistently neglected area of discovery science, situated within the wider landscape of limited R&D for women’s health in general.
What we hear from innovators
The innovators we fund provide regular and valuable feedback to help us continuously improve. We’re proud that they describe us as:
Where we fit in the safe abortion ecosystem
We play an essential role in the safe abortion ecosystem. In a space where funding is scarce and often at risk, we strive to add value with every dollar we invest:
($250K – $3M CAD).
Feminist Investment Approach
| The OPTions Initiative applies a feminist investment approach that places an explicit focus on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls in order to drive progress toward the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal Five: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. |