Unsafe Abortion

Adejoke Monsurat

Maternal Mortality in Nigeria: The unforeseen consequences of unsafe abortion

Nigeria faces one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world and one of the numerous factors for this is unsafe abortions.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Nigeria is the second country with the highest after India which accounts for 17% of global maternal, neonatal, and child deaths with 788 deaths per thousand while Nigeria has 12% with 540 per thousand in 2020.

A study by WHO in 2018, revealed that Nigeria recorded an estimated 512 deaths per 100,000 live births.

Following this, experts have advised both the Federal and State governments to legalize abortion, particularly for victims of rape and incest, to bring down the maternal mortality rate in Nigeria.

Dr Adewunmi Alayaki during an interview argued that there was need for a legal reform in Nigeria on abortion because there are some hidden factors that cause unsafe abortion which causes a rise in maternal mortality in Nigeria.

He said the dangers of having unsafe abortions will continue to pose a danger to Nigeria’s economy as a developed country.

According to Dr Adewunmi Alayaki having an unsafe abortion could lead to infection, and incomplete abortion which can result in excessive bleeding, Damage to the uterus, and infection of the womb itself among others.

“Unsafe abortion due to underreported have claimed made women’s lives, some have bled to death, some have lost their wombs due to unsafe abortion and also leads to mobility as a result of an infection contracted while having an unsafe abortion.

Having unsafe abortions could affect Nigeria economically because most women who procure abortions are working-class women, who for one reason get pregnant and want to take it out because of their jobs.

Additionally, the government should legalize abortion so that a woman who wants to procure an abortion can freely enter any government hospitals where there are experts to procure without fear or discrimination and it will reduce maternal mortality rate because they will meet with experts and not some kind of quacks who end up taking their lives or resulting to complications in the process of the procurement ”

If the government does not legalize abortion the criminalization of abortion does not stop it from occurring; rather, it drives women to seek unsafe and clandestine procedures.

Most countries that have legalized about have been free from maternal Mortality as a result of abortion because their women already know where to go and where not to go.”

Research reviewed that complications resulting from unsafe abortion are up to seven times more severe, therefore,

Legalizing abortion for rape and incest person can help reduce these numbers by providing access to safe and medically supervised procedures.

Every year, 42 million women with unintended pregnancies choose abortion and 20 million procure unsafe abortion,68,000 women die of unsafe abortion annually leading to 13%.

And those who survived unsafe abortions suffer long-term health complications.

Women in fragile, conflict-affected settings also face a higher risk of exposure to sexual violence, as well as barriers to accessing contraception.

These factors increase the risk of unwanted pregnancy and recourse to unsafe abortion, particularly in places where abortion laws are restricted, but Less restrictive aborting laws and greater contraceptive use face social, religious, and political obstacles, particularly in developed nations, where most unsafe abortions (97%) occur.

Even where these obstacles are overcome, women and health care providers need to be educated about contraception and the availability of legal and safe abortion, women need better access to safe abortion and post-abortion services, otherwise desperate women face social stigma, financial difficulties of unintended pregnancy and believing they have no other option will continue to risk their lives by going to quack doctors for unsafe abortion.

Experts in their different submissions opined that every woman who procures an abortion has a reason for doing so, but fear of social stigma exposes them to unsafe abortion.

Although Nigeria’s Constitution Section 228-233 frowns at abortion based on statistics and data from WHO which says most maternal mortality rate of unsafe abortion in Nigeria is caused by high blood pressure, continuous bleeding, and Infections.

Nigeria is now ranked as having the second largest burden of maternal mortality in the world, after India. Most of these deaths are of known causes and are preventable. As Nigeria aligns with the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) efforts at eliminating all preventable maternal deaths by 2030, every effort must henceforth be made to identify and prevent every prevalent, preventable cause of maternal deaths.

One neglected major area of preventable maternal deaths is that related to the provisions of “The Nigerian Abortion Law”. The law permits the termination of pregnancy in circumstances where the continuation of such pregnancy threatens the life of the mother.

Unfortunately, no formal efforts have been made, through the development of policy instruments, guidelines, or tools; to implement these provisions to preserve the lives of Nigerian women whose existence is threatened by the continuation of their pregnancies.

This National Guideline is intended to build the capacity of medical professionals to identify pregnancies for which the law is intended so that ethical and safe management can be instituted.

The guideline provides information on the subsisting Nigerian law on the termination of pregnancy, a compendium of medical conditions and circumstances where the continuation of pregnancy endangers the woman’s life, and a description of the step-by-step options for ethical and safe medical management.

It is envisaged that the enunciation, deployment, and use of this guideline will preserve the lives of pregnant

women who would have died from the continuation of their pregnancies