Feminists For Choice

Anyone who believes that making abortion illegal saves lives has probably never experienced desperation or been affected by misinformation. When access to safe abortion is denied, women turn to dangerous back alley and at-home methods of abortion. Women in countries that outlaw abortions will drink turpentine or bleach, jump from stairs or a rooftop and place foreign bodies such as the classic clothes hanger into their uterus in order to end a pregnancy. 

Any of these methods and others used by women around the world can cause injury and even death. The Center for Reproductive Rights released the report In Harm’s Way: The impact of Kenya’s restrictive abortion law, which details how women are dying because of fuzzy legal language and the criminalization of abortion.

Women in Africa are not more or less likely to have an abortion than any other women in the world. However, women in Africa are more likely to have unsafe abortions and Kenya has one of the highest rates of abortion related deaths. “In Kenya, 35% of maternal deaths are attributable to unsafe abortion.”

Kenya’s current law about abortion states:

Any person who, with intent to procure miscarriage of a woman…unlawfully administers to her or causes her to take any poison…or uses force of any kind, or uses any other means whatever, is guilty of a felony and is liable to imprisonment for fourteen years.”

A loophole is written in the law that allows abortion in the preservation of the women’s life under reasonable care. However, fear of imprisonment, stigmatization, lack of financial support and bureaucratic barriers causes women to resort to unsafe methods of abortion and often they do not seek help if these procedures go horribly wrong.

One contributor to Kenya’s problem is girls resorting to having sex for money in order to help their families. A 2003 study by the Center for the Study of Adolescence found that 56% of secondary school students “had exchanged sex for money.”  The summary of the report opens with a story of a young woman who turned to having sex for money in order to help feed her family.

Sarah was 14 years old when she died from complications from unsafe abortion. She lived in a one-room shack…with her mother, four siblings and two nieces. Her father had died of AIDS and tuberculosis. Her mother, Evelyne, is HIV-positive and was hospitalized for two years with tuberculosis complications…and has permanent limited mobility.

When she couldn’t find work washing clothes for other women, she would have sex with men [for money]. She would use [her earnings] from these encounters to buy food for the family.

When Sarah became pregnant [she] procured an unsafe abortion…Afterwards, Sarah developed a dangerous, life-threatening infection… The cost of emergency healthcare and the fear of arrest kept Sarah from seeking medical care. Sarah died at home on June 29, 2009

 Violence also plays a big role in Kenya’s reproductive issues. Kenya has a high rate of sexual violence, which contributes to the rate of abortion. According to the report, “52% reported being sexually abused in their lifetime while over 30% reported an experience of forced sexual intercourse in their lifetime.”

Currently, there is discussion in Kenya about whether to include in the new constitution language that states “life of a person begins at conception.” This is another attempt in the world to treat women as machines of reproduction rather than full humans. Language like this would only make abortion access more restrictive and continue to criminalize and stigmatize women and doctors.

When looking at international issues there is a lot of debate about how or if western viewpoints should play any role in the policy and community of developing countries. I agree that the western world can’t take over and should always look to local stakeholders to lead and generate ideas.

However, when it comes to decriminalizing abortion this is not something that needs to be debated. Women and girls are dying. According to the World Health Organization “the lowest rates in the world are in Western and Northern Europe, where abortion is accessible with few restrictions.” Isn’t fewer abortion what we all want?