Hostility at state hospitals benefits only abortionists

21 October 2016 - 09:39 By The Times Editorial

If you live in Africa and are pregnant, you are more likely to abort your baby compared to your counterparts in Europe and elsewhere in the First World, a study by the Guttmacher Institute and the World Health Organisation has shown. The legalisation of abortion in South Africa significantly improved the health of women. One study found a 91% decrease in abortion-related mortality between 1998 and 2001, due to the provision of legal abortion in the public health sector. These findings show the public health benefits of the Choice Act.Thanks to the laws governing our democracy, South African women have the right to choose to abort their pregnancy until 13 weeks without giving a reason. Abortions at up to 20 weeks are allowed if it is determined that the mother's economic or social situation is sufficient reason for the pregnancy's termination.After 20 weeks, women and their doctors would have to show that the life of the mother or the child was at risk.But illegal abortions, which place women's lives at risk, are still rampant.Eddie Mhlanga, an obstetrician and gynaecolog ist, said that for every spontaneous miscarriage or abortion in a hospital, five are induced illegally, most of them in urban areas.Why, when women can access the procedure at state facilities?The answer lies in the experience of women at these facilities. They are judged, ostracised and ill-treated by nurses.Teenagers don't access birth control at clinics because they fear the way nurses will treat them. Young women giving birth fare no better.Those wanting an abortion fare worst of all.So although our laws give women the right to make informed choices about their reproductive health, ultimately they are constrained by how much ridicule they can endure.Until medical workers, particularly in state facilities, are forced to change their attitudes, illegal abortions will often seem like the only choice for hundreds of women...

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