Kenya: Pro-choice Group Angered by US Congressman’s Abortion Statement
By Henry Neondo
NAIROBI---A US based NGO operating in Kenya Wednesday took issue with a visiting US Congressman Chris Smith (R) of New Jersey over remarks on abortion while addressing the Kenya Christian Professionals Forum (KCPF).
The International Planned Parenthood Federation Africa Region (IPPFAR) said in a statement released to the press that it was gravely concerned with Congressman Smith’s assertion that the Kenyan Constitution opens the door to abortion on demand.
Funmi Balogun-Alexander, Director, External Relations and Advocacy, IPPF said the remarks were based on misrepresentation and distortion of facts regarding the Constitution and access to safe abortion in Kenya.
In his closed door speech to select Christians under the auspices of the Kenya Christian Professionals Forum on March 21, 2011, Rep. Chris Smith compared Kenya’s new constitution to the Cuban “eugenics policy” of terminating children with Down’s Syndrome and asserted that nobody would be allowed to build their “political futures on the backs of dead babies and wounded mothers”.
Funmi Balogun-Alexander said the remarks point to a larger mission by Republicans and fundamentalist Christians in the United States to control women’s sexuality and their bodies, which is of course a political agenda. It has nothing to do with Christianity but another form of colonization and imperialism. The United States itself is founded on the principles of individual freedom and rights and clearly separates State from the Church, with abortion being legal in many states and under different circumstances.
“We at IPPF Africa Region, a federation of 42 Member Associations in Africa, working to safeguard every individual’s access to safe and accessible sexual and reproductive health and rights, have been in the forefront of ensuring the reduction of maternal deaths/morbidity through unsafe abortions, availability of reproductive health commodities and information on maternal health/safe motherhood and in Africa for over 60 years take exception to the bullying antics of organized Christian right groups in Africa aimed at denying women’s choices over their reproductive health”, Funmi Balogun-Alexander said.
According to the new Constitution of Kenya, abortion is forbidden, “unless in the opinion of a trained health professional, there is need for emergency treatment, or the life or health of the mother is in danger or if permitted by any other written law.”
“Obviously, those opposed to the implementation of section 26 (4) of the Kenyan Constitution do not see the larger picture on the status of women in Kenya and the Sub Saharan Africa as a whole where women continue to die due to unsafe abortions and high rates of maternal mortality”, said Funmi Balogun-Alexander.
Globally, an estimated 19-20 million unsafe abortions take place every year, 97 percent of them in developing countries.
An estimated 70,000 women die every year as a result of unsafe abortions with millions experiencing severe health consequences.
This annual number of deaths has not changed significantly in the past ten years. The vast majority of these deaths occur in Sub-Saharan Africa (about 38,000).
Unsafe abortions vary substantially by age across regions: adolescents (15–19 years) account for 25 per cent of all unsafe abortions in Africa, whereas 23 per cent of unsafe abortions are in women aged 30–44 years.
For the developing regions as a whole, unsafe abortions peak in women aged 20–29 years. On the basis of WHO estimates, if current rates prevail throughout women’s reproductive lifetimes, women in the developing world will have an average of about one unsafe abortion by age 45 years.
According to WHO estimates women in South America, Eastern Africa, and Western Africa are more likely to have an unsafe abortion than are women in other regions.
In Africa, there are 4.2 million unsafe abortions annually; unsafe abortion rates are 24 per 1000 women aged 15–44 years which translates to 14 unsafe abortions per 100 live births.
Specifically in Kenya, an estimated 316,560 abortions – both spontaneous and induced – occur every year. This equals 46 abortions for every 1,000 women of reproductive age or about 29 for every 100 live births.
In Eastern Africa there are estimated 20 abortions per 100 live births with Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania alone having 1 in 5 maternal deaths being due to unsafe abortions a situation that could be prevented if provision of comprehensive safe abortion services would be incorporated in addressing maternal mortality.
The IPPF and other pro-choice groups have seen the Kenyan Constitution a just one possibility to explore in dealing with the high number of women, often poor and living in rural areas who choose to terminate pregnancies because of the limited choices and rights that they have.
Reasons for seeking abortion are varied including socioeconomic concerns (including poverty, no support from the partner, and disruption of education or employment); family-building preferences (including the need to postpone childbearing or achieve a healthy spacing between births); relationship problems with the husband or partner; risks to maternal or foetal health; and pregnancy resulting from rape or incest.
More proximate causes include poor access to contraceptives and contraceptive failure.
The lack of access to family planning services leads to unintended pregnancies often leading to unsafe abortion and increasing the rates of maternal mortality in Africa.
Studies in Kenya indicate that majority of those seeking post abortion care are married women, which points to the high unmet needs for family planning.
According to the 2003 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS) 25 per cent of married women have unmet need for family planning, 14 per cent have unmet need for spacing and 10 perc ent have unmet need for limiting the number of children they desire.
Studies in Zambia, Uganda and Kenya have shown couples not willing to get another baby due to hard economic times.
Abortions in the majority of African countries are permitted under certain conditions. When abortion laws are restrictive, women are at risk of unsafe abortion.
Furthermore, societal attitudes, religious and cultural beliefs continue to be a hindrance to service delivery.
According to pro-choice groups, efforts to provide comprehensive sexuality education for young people continue to be hampered by the anti-choice/fundamentalist groups who insist that comprehensive sexuality education leads to promiscuity.
The say sexuality is fundamental to all human beings and not all human beings subscribe to the notion of abstinence, nor should they be subjected to it. Insisting on one’s way of life as the only one is in our view a fundamental denial of rights of people and given the history of Africa with slavery and colonialism, it is something we outrightly reject.
“No woman likes to have an unsafe abortion, but with no access to sexuality information, to contraceptives, inability to negotiate safer sex or contraceptives use, high intergenerational sex, high incidences of rape, incest and other sexual violence, most women just simply resort to the only option available to them which is unsafe abortions”, argue pro-choice groups.
In collaboration with governments, including the AU Commission through the Maputo Plan of Action which provides a comprehensive sexuality framework for addressing the sexual and reproductive health needs and rights of all Africans, pro-choice groups vowed that they shall continue to address unsafe abortion in Africa, to promote women’s right to decide the number and spacing of their children, comprehensive sexuality education for young people and advocate women’s right to access safe and legal abortion when unintended pregnancy has occurred.