HEALTH-NIGERIA: Abortion Law Takes a Toll

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Toye Olori

LAGOS, Aug 8 2004 (IPS) - The fight for human rights in Nigeria has received ample coverage, as has that for fairer distribution of oil revenues – and the battle to curb endemic corruption. But, Nigerian women have another, and often more pressing fight on their hands – for abortion rights.

It’s a struggle that Toyin Aje knows something about. When she fell pregnant with a child that her boyfriend was not prepared to bring up, they concluded that abortion was the best way of dealing with the situation. The state disagreed.

In Nigeria, abortion is only permitted if the procedure is needed to save the life of a woman. Abortion under other circumstances is punishable with up to seven years imprisonment for the woman concerned, while the doctor who performs the procedure can spend 14 years in jail.

As Toyin was unable to get an abortion in a public hospital, the couple sought the help of someone who operated a pharmacy in the capital, Abuja – but who was neither a doctor nor a qualified pharmacist. Toyin was given drugs to induce abortion in her fifth month of pregnancy.

While the foetus died, it was not flushed from the womb. Toyin began experiencing severe pain, and was ultimately hospitalized in a facility near her village of Ogori, some 200 kilometres south of Abuja. Although doctors there managed to save her life, she was told that she would not be able to have more children.

Gloria Oguntola, who lived in the commercial centre of Lagos, was not that fortunate. Her illegal abortion caused her to bleed to death.

“We do not know who to hold responsible because she could not tell us before she died. I leave everything to God,” Gloria’s father, John Oguntola, told IPS.

The United Nations Population Policy Data Bank estimates that only 40 per cent of abortions in Nigeria are performed by doctors. The complications resulting from botched abortions have made the procedure one of the leading causes of maternal death in the country.

Now Ipas, a United States-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) that works for women’s health and and reproductive rights, is calling for Nigeria’s abortion laws to be reviewed.

“What we are saying about reforming the abortion law is we should include rape and incest in the law, which presently allows abortion only to save a woman’s life. The decision to abort should also be the wish of the woman,” Ipas country director for Nigeria, Ejike Oji, told IPS.

A 2004 report by Ipas says about 46 million women around the world seek abortions each year, more than half of them resorting to untrained providers who work in unsanitary conditions. A quarter of these unsafe abortions occur in Africa.

Boniface Oye-Adeniran, president of the Confederation of African Medical Associations and Societies, also believes it is essential to alter Nigeria’s abortion laws.

“For us to reduce the carnage of our women through unsafe abortion, the law has to regulate abortion services, determine who performs it and where it can be performed. If abortion services are available in public hospitals, quacks will be discouraged,” says Oye-Adeniran, who is also an obstetrician and gynaecologist at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital.

In 2000, the UN set reducing maternal mortality by three-quarters by 2015 as one of its Millennium Development Goals. The eight goals focus on – amongst other things – improving health and education, and reducing poverty around the world.

However, religious leaders in Nigeria have argued against legalising abortion, saying life is sacrosanct from the moment of conception.

Oye-Adeniran, who formed part of a team of Nigerian and American researchers who undertook a survey of abortions in Nigeria between 1996 and 1997, said the study showed that about 366,000 unsafe abortions were performed in the country annually.

The researchers were sponsored by the United States-based Alan Guttmacher Institute – which investigates sexual and reproductive health issues – and the Nigerian Campaign Against Unwanted Pregnancy, an NGO.

They also found that even though abortions are mostly outlawed in Nigeria, the rate of abortion in the country was higher than that of many Western European states. In addition, the incidence of abortion in Nigeria was comparable to that of the United States, where abortion is legal.

The researchers concluded that while improved access to contraception would reduce unplanned pregnancies and hence abortions, greater access to safe abortion was needed to protect the health of Nigerian women.