Reports from a recent study on the incidence of abortion in Nigeria has revealed that over one million women of reproductive age underwent unsafe abortion and further develop complications.
Dr Olutosin Awolude, a lecturer at the University of Ibadan (UI) disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja during the launch and dissemination of the national study conducted in 2012.
The study was supported by Guttmacher Institute, an international organisation which works to advance reproductive health, in collaboration with IPAS Nigeria.
Awolude said that the objective of the study was to assess the incidence of abortion in Nigeria both regionally and nationally as well as to check the prevalence of unintended pregnancies.
The study was also targeted at finding out how many women access treatment after abortion in safe health facilities.
It noted that although abortion is illegal, it is still very common and mainly procured in unsafe health facilities.
“In Nigeria, abortion is legal only when performed to save the life of the woman.
“Still abortions are common and mostly unsafe because they are done clandestinely by unskilled providers.
“In spite of Nigeria’s highly restrictive abortion law, an estimated 1.25 million induced abortions occurred in 2012.
“The estimated abortion rate was 33 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15 to 49 in 2012.
“They are married and sexually active and they want to space their births or stop child bearing but are not using contraceptives.”
According to Awolude, the population of women of reproductive age is about 41 million while one in seven women have unmet
needs for family planning.
He added that the prevalence of unsafe abortions in the country had contributed to reproduction complications and high
rate of maternal mortality.
“One in seven women have unmet needs for family planning and 500 deaths occur per 100,000 births in the country, thereby
increasing Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR).
“Complications of unsafe abortion range from pain to bleeding and more serious conditions, including systemic infection, pelvic
infections and injury from instruments and even death.
“About 40 per cent of women undergoing abortion experience, complications serious enough to require medical treatment.”
He, however, said that expansion, promotion of family planning programmes as well as sexuality and family life education would
reduce unsafe abortion practices.
Awolude said that the study was carried out in the six geo-political zones of the country, involving 18 states and sampling all
tertiary institutions where unsafe abortion was regarded as most prevalent.
Also speaking, Mrs Hauwa Shekarau, the Acting Country Representative, IPAS Nigeria, observed that legal restrictions on abortion did
not reduce the practice but rather made it unsafe.
Shekarau said that any law not responsive to the yearnings of the people was a dead law.
“Nigerian government has been committed under international law to protect the woman’s reproductive rights, including the Africa Protocol on the Right of Women signed in 2003.
“Abortions take place because of restrictive abortion law and legal restrictions on abortion does not reduce it but makes it more unsafe.”
The acting country representative added that the country’s abortion law needed to be reviewed and given “a human face”.
“Our abortion law needs to be reviewed; we need to decriminalise abortion and develop guidelines at all levels of the health system to ensure that women can access modern methods of contraception.
“We need to develop guidelines for the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act by providing comprehensive medical care to victims of rape or incest.”
In addition, Shekarau stated that healthcare providers required proper training to be able to provide health services to people including abortion-related cases.
She said that building support and legal awareness including rights to safe abortion, was required to curb the menace of abortion in the country.
The 1996 survey on abortion incidence estimated unsafe abortion rate at 23 per 1,000 women within the age of 15 to 44.
