Breaking the Silence: Why Safe Abortion is Essential
It had been a year since I accompanied my best friend to get an abortion, and for the longest time, I kept waiting for the guilt to hit, but instead, all I got was relief - relief that she did not have to abandon school, relief that she did not have to bring a child she was not ready for, relief that she did not have to alter her life because of a child.
I vividly remember when she woke me and said, "I'm pregnant," and initially, I said, "Congratulations" because I didn't register the full weight of the phrase until she hit me again and woke me up from my sleep. Then, I realized the trouble we were in. Consequently, we went for tests, hoping the results would change, but they didn't, and we had to decide the way forward.
The memory of the dingy flat where it all happened and the way she screamed in pain is still fresh. I remember looking over my shoulder when we were leaving the place to see if anyone knew what we had just done. I kept looking at her on our way home and praying she wouldn't faint as it happens in films.
I also remember the constant reassurance that everything would be alright and nothing bad would happen, and the way we both screamed for joy when she saw her period two weeks later.
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if she hadn't made that decision, and often I wish it was safer; I wish she didn't have to lie on a table for someone she doesn't know. Although I know we were lucky nothing happened to her, several women didn't have the same fate.
Consequently, I am often filled with what-ifs. What if she had complications? What if she had died? How would I explain it? But I'm grateful she didn't have to go through it alone.
My best friend's ordeal opened my eyes to the need for safe abortions in Nigeria. However, Calling for the legalization of abortion is opening the door to attacks from every corner imaginable because apparently, you want to murder and take an innocent life.
The focus is always on the child but not on the mental and physical well-being of the mother after all, she's just a vessel; why should what she wants matter? Why should she decide whether she wants to bring a child into this world?
Induced abortion is illegal in Nigeria except when done to save a woman's life, yet abortions happen quite frequently in Nigeria. Statistics from Bell et al. (2020) indicate that there were 45.8 abortions per 1,000 women, approximately two-thirds of which are unsafe. The same research estimates that 85% of abortions in West Africa are unsafe, and women are seeking procedures outside formal healthcare and putting themselves in danger.
The WHO defines unsafe abortion as a procedure for terminating an unintended pregnancy carried out either by persons lacking the necessary skills or in an environment that does not conform to minimal medical standards or both.
According to the National Library of Medicine, unsafe abortion causes 20,000 deaths a year in Nigeria. Additionally, the same research carried out by the Nigerian Ministry of Health also shows that about 610,000 unsafe abortions are carried out in Nigeria, and about half of the 20,000 women who die from complications of unsafe abortion are adolescents.
In the case of adolescents, the majority of these young women are not physically and mentally ready to have a child. Moreover, the coming of the child disrupts the trajectory of their lives, and they cannot find their footing until much later in life. Approximately 3.9 million adolescent girls worldwide have unsafe abortions, and in countries like Nigeria, adolescent pregnancy is considered the leading cause of newborn and maternal mortality. It is saddening that these deaths of young girls can be prevented by providing access to safe, accessible abortion yet, it’s being infringed.
Additionally, rape is a prevalent issue in Nigeria. According to the United Nations, there were 11,200 reported cases of rape in Nigeria in 2020. It’s common for some rape cases to result in pregnancy, and the victims who got pregnant have to keep reliving their trauma because of the lack of access to safe abortions. Not only will they have a constant reminder of their body being violated, but also a reminder that they do not have the right to make decisions concerning their body, which will lead to the resentment of a child that could have been easily aborted.
It's a harsh reality that many women resort to coat hangers or other objects inserted into the vagina, ingesting harmful concoctions or toxic substances including bleach, and inflicting trauma such as forced falling or hitting the abdomen - all in desperate attempts to terminate unwanted pregnancies.
The consequences of such methods are horrific - haemorrhage, sepsis, uterine perforation or damage to internal organs. Some women might require urgent hospital care for blood transfusions, major surgery or even a hysterectomy - the complete, irreversible removal of the uterus, robbing them of any chance at future pregnancies.
While some women can access somewhat safer medication abortion pills on the black market, they may still suffer complications due to poor drug quality, incorrect dosing, inadequate information, or a combination of these factors. It's a gamble with their health and lives.
Making abortion illegal does not stop people from doing it. Instead, it stops it from being safe and accessible, which is a violation of women's reproductive rights. With a side effect of pregnancy being death, it is only reasonable for the woman carrying the baby to decide whether or not they want one.
The fact that the full body autonomy of women is being decided by men who face no harm or even consequences of getting someone pregnant is disheartening. Women have to fight tooth and nail to get the right to their bodies, even in the so-called progressive countries. Case in point, the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, which limited the reproductive rights of American women "
According to the Guttmacher Institute, 26 US States have multiple bans ready to enact, 13 of which were trigger laws that automatically took effect when Roe v. Wade was revoked, and 11 states had early gestational age bans."
Moreover, the economic effect of having children is having another mouth to cater for and providing a nutritious meal for both mother and child. This is not possible for women from indigent households as they have to fend for these kids themselves. Consequently, we need to realize that children are not necessarily blessings but responsibilities, especially for the person carrying them. Children need the best care; they need to be met with their every need and should not suffer because the person who brought them into the world is not ready.
Furthermore, the weight of having children that you're not prepared for lies heavily on the shoulders of the woman, with the man deciding to stay or not. Men are not punished for unwanted pregnancy, but women are. They are expected to put their academics, and careers on hold to cater for a child that they don't want. Women are expected to suffer the turmoil of pregnancy and childbearing and yet their right to decide whether they want it or not is being withheld.
Growing up, my mum always shunned any idea of abortion because according to her, it had rendered her friend childless, and her sister couldn't also give birth because she had an abortion. This is a common misconception about abortion which is untrue.
According to the NHS, "Having an abortion will not affect chances of becoming pregnant or having normal pregnancies in the future. It can only increase the chances of a baby being born early in future pregnancies." However, unsafe abortion is linked to different forms of complications, including womb infections that can lead to infertility.
Another common defense touted by pro-life advocates is that women end up regretting the decision to have an abortion. However, this claim has been refuted by research. A 2020 report by the University of California San Francisco found no evidence that women began to regret their decision as years passed. Instead, the study showed that both positive and negative feelings about abortion diminished over time for these women.
At the five-year mark, the overwhelming majority (84 per cent) had either positive feelings about their abortion decision or no feelings about it at all. This undermines the notion that most women are devastated by long-term regret after having an abortion.
People slut-shame women for getting abortions under the guise of "Why did she spread her legs if she doesn't want to get pregnant" or "Why did she not use contraceptives?" Newsflash- contraceptives fail. Also, in Nigeria, access to contraceptives is limited with religious, cultural and societal factors hindering contraceptive use. In addition, abortion is not only for single women, married women who also have constant unprotected sex should have a right to it and decide if they want to birth a child or not.
On asking my best friend if she wanted to share her thoughts on this piece, having initially agreed but later declined, in her words, "I thought I could answer the questions, but I'm not emotionally ready, and it's not something I want to relive again." Even as a bystander in the whole process, my heart breaks for her, and sometimes I wish she never had to go through that ordeal.
I wish she had better access to aftercare and didn't have to bottle up her emotions, act like nothing is amiss and be forced to return to a life of normalcy.
The process of getting an abortion is already an emotional trauma, but making the process illegal, unsafe, and unnecessarily difficult is inhumane.
Every woman deserves the right to make decisions about her own body and reproductive choices. Every woman has a right to choose whether or not she wants to bring a human into this world, and no one should force her to do so.