Quality and abortion services

Abstract

The authors of the article ‘Identifying indicators for quality abortion care: a systematic literature review’ in this journal issue1 deserve admiration for having proposed an academic solution to address the paucity of work in this area. It is telling that only 21 relevant publications could be identified in the literature, despite abortion being such a common health need that a significant proportion of the population will access. In other areas of medicine the quality agenda has become mainstream. In contrast, those involved in abortion care frequently work in isolation and have had to concentrate on operating in difficult legal and social environments where defined quality indicators could be used against them further to restrict access. It is therefore heartening to see this article published …