Health and Human Rights Journal –VIEWPOINT
6 May 2026
Jessica Oga, Moses Mulumba, Stuart Ssebibubbu, Fatina Mwebe, and Nimrod Muhumuza
On April 24, 2026, the Kenyan Court of Appeal at Malindi reinstated criminal proceedings against a 17-year-old girl who had received post-abortion care for an incomplete abortion and against the clinical officer who had treated her.[1] The judgment in Kenya Christian Professionals’ Forum v. PAK will be read as a setback for abortion rights in Kenya, and in that frame, it is a setback. But the frame is the problem.[2] PAK is not, on its facts, an abortion case. It is a post-abortion care case prosecuted under abortion statutes, and in this viewpoint, we argue that the court of appeal’s central failure was to allow the slippage between these two categories to govern the proceedings. Recognizing this slippage as the mechanism of harm reframes both the doctrinal failure and the violation of the right to health that the judgment entails.