A right to choice should be within every woman’s reach

Two years ago, with a ten-month-old child to care for, I decided to have an abortion when the contraception I chose to use failed.

Two years ago, with a ten-month-old child to care for, I decided to have an abortion when the contraception I chose to use failed.

Weighing the pros and cons of carrying on with the pregnancy, I found myself in a dilemma. I had started a new job and wanted to impress my bosses. A new baby was the last thing on my mind. My daughter was still breastfeeding. She needed my undivided attention.

Also, what would my mother, friends, workmates and my husband think?   They would not understand. They would think I had just been irresponsible. I had delivered through a Caesarian section and carrying a new pregnancy to full term, my doctor advised , could jeopardize my life.

I decided to terminate the pregnancy. When I told my doctor, he was taken aback and asked me to think twice about it. But he also said he knew doctors who could help me. The abortion cost me 50,000 Zimbabwean dollars.

As I look back on the decision I made, I do not feel ashamed or guilty. My conscious is clear though I can never forget the pain and suffering I went through. I am lucky. I could afford to pay for a more clinical and safe abortion in a country where the majority of women do not have access to proper health facilities when confronted with making a choice to terminate a pregnancy or not.

I also had an opportunity to make a decision about my health without any dictates from anyone. It was my choice. My heart goes out to those women who cannot exercise this right in the way I did.

Affording women the right to decide on their reproductive health is giving them the right to live. In Zimbabwe, thousands of women die annually due to the complications of unsafe abortions. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that about 13 percent of pregnancy-related deaths have been attributed to complications of unsafe abortion.

Zimbabwean law only allows abortion in cases of rape, proven in a court of law, and when the pregnancy endangers the life of the woman. However, despite this inhibiting law, backdoor and unsafe abortions continue to take place, posing a danger to women’s health.

Attempts in Zimbabwe to have the abortion laws revisited in the early 1990’s were fruitless. The then Minister of Health and Child Welfare sparked off debate when he suggested that government provide access to termination on demand to reduce the number of backdoor abortions.

Traditionalists attacked the government arguing that abortion was against African culture and that by allowing abortion, the country would be adopting decadent Western values. Christians, who make up almost 90 percent of the population, argued that abortion is murder and against the teachings of the Bible.

But who shouts about the moral issue when women, because of the restrictive law or because they cannot afford the large sums of money charged by doctors, seek the cheap solutions of traditional healers, who are known for using unclean and unorthodox procedures that endanger the lives of women?

Desperate teenagers and women are attended to in hospitals after inducing abortions with coat hangers, knitting needles, traditional medicines, and other harsh substances that cause multiple infections and excessive bleeding which to lead to   infertility, or even death.

Women should no longer continue to die due to complications arising from unsafe abortions given the advent of new and safer medical methods of abortion. The number of women still dying from unsafe abortions should be a moral check for legislators.

More women’s lives could be saved, if they are given a choice and control of their own bodies.

Ncbuhle Ncube is a Zimbabwean freelance journalist.

This article is part of the GEM Opinion and Commentary Service that provides views and perspectives on current events.

Contact Jan Moolman at janine@genderlinks.org.za for more information.