Illicit abortions on the rise despite health risks and legal hazards

• Some 300,000 women in the country get rid of their ‘unwanted’ pregnancies annually

When a woman is faced with an unwanted pregnancy, she has few options in many parts of the world.

In Kenya, terminating the pregnancy may land her in jail or she might die at the hands of backstreet doctors.

Statistics show that unsafe abortion is on the rise despite Kenya’s restrictive laws.

An estimated 46 million women worldwide take that risk each year by having illegal abortions, and nearly 20 million of these are unsafe.

And as many as 300,000 of these take place in Kenya.

According to the World Health Organisation, 500,000 women die annually from abortion-related causes and 13 per cent suffer injuries resulting from unsafe abortions.

Most abortions take place in developing countries, which account for 95 per cent of unsafe abortions compared with five per cent in developed countries — a disparity that largely reflects the relative death occurrences.

WHO estimates that between two million and seven million women each year survive unsafe abortion, but sustain long-term damage or disease.

The death toll is especially high in sub-Saharan Africa countries where abortion laws are very restrictive. According to WHO, 44 per cent of deaths occur in Africa.

In Kenya, although termination of pregnancy is highly restricted, unsafe abortions are especially rife in the countryside, putting women at risk of death or severe health complications.

According to Prof Joseph Karanja, a senior gynaecologist at Kenyatta Hospital, lack of skilled medical practitioners to carry out safe abortions has led to deaths and complicated injuries.

He attributed the increase in abortions to lack of education, economic and socio-cultural factors.

Adolescents and young unmarried women cited the stigma attached to bearing a child outside marriage, their inability to support the child, and the realisation that they would have to quit school for having abortions.

Among older and married women, common reasons included economic hardship and the desire to space their children.

Maternal deaths

Unsafe abortions are usually obtained clandestinely outside established health facilities.

Crude methods such as insertion of foreign objects like wire, knitting needles and forceps are employed in the back street operations.

Tragically, those who survive the unsafe abortions are left with permanent disabilities and most will require additional corrective or resuscitative operations.