Desperate measures: Pakistani women seek abortions as birth control

Desperate measures: Pakistani women seek abortions as birth control

Monday February 18 2019
By AFP

PESHAWAR: Pregnant, desperate, and poor, Pakistani mother Zameena faced a stark choice: risk her life by having a secret abortion, or risk her life bearing her husband a sixth child.

In the end, she opted for the former, one of more than two million women a year to do so in a country where religious leaders are critical of family planning measures and there is a lack of sex education and access to contraception.

continued: https://www.nation.co.ke/news/world/Pakistani-women-seek-abortions-as-birth-control/1068-4986944-6tebnh/index.html

Why The Abortion Rate In Pakistan Is One Of The World’s Highest

Why The Abortion Rate In Pakistan Is One Of The World's Highest

Diaa Hadid
Nov 28, 2018

When at 19 Mehnaz became pregnant for the fifth time, she panicked. She already had four daughters, and her husband was threatening to throw her out if she had another. So she did what millions of Pakistani women do every year: She had an abortion.

Like many of those women, her abortion was partly self-administered. "I kept taking tablets — whatever I laid my hands on," she says. "I lifted heavy things" — like the furniture in her tiny living room. She drank brews of boiled dates — many Pakistanis believe the beverage triggers labor.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/11/28/661763318/why-the-abortion-rate-in-pakistan-is-one-of-the-worlds-highest