Kenya abortion: Women go to backstreet clinics amid legal ambiguity

Legal ambiguity over abortions in Kenya is pushing thousands of women to turn to backstreet clinics. BBC Africa Eye explores how abortion is shrouded in stigma and misinformation.

26th November 2023
By Zoe Flood, Linda Ngari & Tamasin Ford, BBC Africa Eye, Nairobi & London

Edith is lying on a bed covered in old newspaper in a backstreet clinic in Nairobi.

Her legs are held high by stirrups while a man in a white medical coat explains he is about to put some medicine inside her uterus. A red bucket of bleach containing medical instruments sits on the floor.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67473183


Blood, sweat and tears of unsafe abortions and the better way out

by NJERI MBUGUA

09 October
2020

We are sitting in her studio apartment, and during the duration of our
conversation, she carefully tucks herself at the corner of her bed.

She had requested me to sit at her study table, just next to the bed on a
wooden chair facing her. Her eyes were swollen and she told me she was yet to
change the sheets in her bed.

Continued: https://www.the-star.co.ke/sasa/lifestyle/2020-10-09-blood-sweat-and-tears-of-unsafe-abortions-and-the-better-way-out/


Women in Kenya Are Using Knitting Needles to End Their Pregnancies. Blame Donald Trump.

The president has given fringe anti-abortion groups unprecedented influence.

OCTOBER 8, 2020
By NEHA WADEKAR

On a rainy morning in May 2019, Dr. John Nyamu was attending to patients on the cluttered first floor of an office building in downtown Nairobi when he heard raucous shouts from down the street. A caravan of protesters was winding toward him, a few hundred people teeming in the streets, bellowing through loudspeakers, and stopping traffic.

As the crowd reached his building, Nyamu, a well-known gynecologist who performs abortions in a private clinic, peered through his window at the protesters below to make out what they were saying. It turns out they were targeting him. “Abortion is murder! Abortion must go! Nyamu must go!” Some held signs with photos of mutilated fetuses. Others clutched baby-size cardboard coffins with crosses on them.

Continued: https://www.typeinvestigations.org/investigation/2020/10/08/abortion-kenya-knitting-needles-donald-trump/


Kenya – How conmen are minting millions in risky abortion procedures

How conmen are minting millions in risky abortion procedures

The Nairobian
By Jeckonia Otieno
Nov 11, 2018

Carol paid Sh10, 000 and was given four pills and instructed to swallow two [Photo: Courtesy]

Carol, 20, almost became a static because of an orgasm. “I had to get rid of the pregnancy. I am still waiting to join college and my parents would have been mad had they known,” Carol revealed.

A friend advised her to visit a private doctor within the Nairobi CBD, where she was charged a consultation fee of Sh3, 000.

Continued: https://www.sde.co.ke/thenairobian/article/2001302295/how-conmen-are-minting-millions-in-risky-abortion-procedures


Africa fighting maternal, neonatal mortality with community-level interventions, technology

Africa fighting maternal, neonatal mortality with community-level interventions, technology
Sub-Saharan Africa is leveraging emerging technologies to improve access to basic provisions to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality

Subhojit Goswami
Thursday 08 February 2018

What kind of interventions work for improving quality of care for women and newborns in Africa? This was the moot question of the webinar on ‘Reducing maternal, neonatal and infant mortality as a means to achieving SDGs in Africa’ hosted by the Aid & International Development Forum on February 7. Setting the context at the onset, Lutomia Mangala, Health specialist, Maternal Newborn and Child Health (MNCH), UNICEF, said, “Globally, there has been significant reduction in women and newborn deaths by 60 per cent. But most of the progress has been in Eastern Asia and Northern Africa. The maternal and neonatal deaths in sub-Saharan Africa have not reduced as much as expected.”

Continued: http://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/africa-fighting-maternal-neonatal-mortality-with-community-level-interventions-technology-59650


How Trump abortion funding cuts could affect Africa

How Trump abortion funding cuts could affect Africa
By Anne Soy, BBC Africa health correspondent

28 January 2017

Donald Trump's pro-abortion funding ban has infuriated many global health organisations as they say it will unintentionally lead to more abortions and more deaths in Africa.

The US president signed the executive order to stop federal money going to international groups which perform or provide information on abortions during his first week in office.

Known as the "Mexico City Policy", or global gag rule by critics, it was no surprise that he reinstated it. First introduced by Ronald Reagan in 1984, it has been become a game of policy ping pong between Republican and Democrat presidents.

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Source, BBC.com: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-38768901