Sierra Leone News: Safe Abortion Act stranded between Parliament and State House

Sierra Leone News: Safe Abortion Act stranded between Parliament and State House

July 25, 2017

The “Safe Abortion Act, 2015, has stalled somewhere between Parliament and State House. The Act will change the 150-year old colonial “1861 Abortion Law” to allow women and girls to terminate a pregnancy in any circumstances up to 12 weeks. The Bill would also allow abortion in cases of incest, rape and foetal impairment up to 24 weeks.

In Sierra Leone, the country with the world’s worst maternal mortality, abortion is illegal in nearly all circumstances and unsafe abortion is estimated to account for 10% of maternal deaths. The World Health Organization estimates that Sierra Leone has the world’s highest maternal mortality ratio at 1,360 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2016.

Thousands of adolescent girls become pregnant in Sierra Leone every year and account for almost 50% of all births.

Continued at source: Awoko: http://awoko.org/2017/07/26/sierra-leone-news-safe-abortion-act-stranded-between-parliament-and-state-house/