While it is questioned in the United States, while its inclusion in the French Constitution is debated, the right to abortion is about to take an important step in Paris.
By the end of the year, patients wishing to have recourse to surgical abortion, by aspiration, will no longer be forced to go through the hospital environment.
The sexual health and planning center of the associative medical center of rue Levert (XXth) will also offer it, just as it also offers medical abortion.
A first in Paris.
The proximity between this family planning and education center (CPEF) and a medical dispensary allows this major advance, carried by the Belleville social work group (GOSB), which oversees the premises.
“This may change the framework.
In any case, it was a need felt by the team of the sexual health center to be able to individualize the care", explains Jérémy Poulard, director of the GOSB, whose center follows approximately 500 patients a year, that is approximately a thousand consultations and interviews per year.
In 2021, the center performed 36 medical abortions.
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"This aspiration technique, which is most often done under local anesthesia, is the most comfortable solution, which takes little time and is less risky than a medical abortion during which women often find themselves alone, physical and psychological consequences", comments Dr. Élodie Malvezin, one of the two practitioners who will soon be authorized to carry out these operations.
The CPEF will therefore be able to perform these abortions by aspiration by the last quarter of 2022, the time for the doctors to complete their more technical training.
This novelty is encouraged by the City of Paris.
"I hope that the model will spread", comments Anne Souyris, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of Health, visiting this Friday in this open center in the heart of a popular district, whose patients come from the north-east of Paris. , but also on the other side of the device;
Seine-Saint-Denis, more specifically, where the care offer remains undersized, especially in summer with center closures.
Especially since it allows you to bypass the passage through the hospital box, which can sometimes be difficult.
“The emotional charge in this type of intervention is not insignificant.
We add a heavy medical process, for my part dehumanized… I hope for the women who will have recourse to it that it will be different in this new structure”, insists Sylvie (the first name has been changed), who underwent an abortion by aspiration five years ago.
24 sexual health centers in Paris
Thursday, the Council of Paris must confirm the financing of the City in order to equip and transform the CPEF into an outpatient abortion site.
“The important thing was to put in place simplified access, which prevents women from finding themselves in a situation that they did not choose, because they did not want to go to a hospital environment, is satisfied Anne Souris.
It is essential that they can choose from people they trust, and all sexual health centers should be able to do so, so the law should change.
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The capital now has 24 family planning and education centers (CPEF).
Only five are managed by the City, but in 2021 they made it possible to carry out 411 medical abortions as well as 1,509 abortion-related consultations, for a total of 759 women welcomed.
In the 20th arrondissement, surgical abortion may be offered, but the center will provide the same reception and the same support for its patients, confidential and free.
The big plus for the patients will be to be able to complete their process in one and the same place, which they already know and frequent.
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Performing abortion in a familiar place "is fundamental", says Élodie Malvezin.
“All the women I meet express some guilt.
Being able to receive them without any judgement, more freely, and ensuring the anonymity of underage girls, offering them support according to the psychosocial context in which they live, helps to make the gesture more peaceful.
The idea of having to go elsewhere, start a new course of care, tell your story to other people, can be prohibitive.
If we can meet their needs, it is reassuring.
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In Paris and more generally in Île-de-France, abortion remains an important recourse to unwanted pregnancies.
According to the latest epidemiological data from the Department of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics (Drees) for 2020, compared to the years prior to the health crisis, the Paris region recorded nearly 52,000 abortions, including 31 989 interventions in hospitals, just under 3,000 in health centers and CPEFs, and 16,834 in medical practices.
