Kenya Allows Safe Abortion. So Why Are Women Dying?

Wealth inequalities and a growing conservative backlash are combining to put lives at risk.

Jacqueline Kubania in Kenya
Thursday, 21 November, 2024

When Beryl Mueni first sought an abortion, the supposed doctor she visited gave her two pills for which she paid Kes 500 (3.75 US dollars). It was only after she got home and checked the leaflet that she realised she’d been conned. The pills were Clomid, which ironically is used to stimulate ovulation so women can conceive more easily.

Mueni, only 17 years old at the time, was determined to terminate the five-month pregnancy so she could continue her education. “I went back to him and demanded proper abortion medication,” she recalled. “It was then that he gave me a single dose of misoprostol to place under my tongue. A few hours later, I felt my stomach begin to cramp but that was it. Nothing came out. I resigned myself to my failed abortion and made peace with the fact that I would become a mother.”

Continued: https://iwpr.net/global-voices/kenya-allows-safe-abortion-so-why-are-women-dying

How the U.S. Election Has an Outsized Effect on Global Reproductive Health

U.S. politics harm women by tying health workers' hands, even in countries where abortion care is legal.

November 14, 2024
By Christine Mungai, Harvard Public Health

In Nairobi, Kenya, Cate Nyambura is awaiting the outcome of the U.S. presidential election as if it could change her life—which it might. Nyambura is the director of programs at ATHENA Network, a global feminist collective that works primarily on reproductive health and rights, HIV/AIDS, and gender-based violence. “We hold our breath when the U.S. is having elections,” Nyambura says.

Tuesday’s vote will have an enormous effect on how—and whether—Nyambura and countless other health workers and reproductive rights activists around the world can do their jobs. Thanks to a longstanding rule about abortion that shifts each time the White House changes political parties, every U.S. presidential election pits the American mood against other countries’ sovereignty—and the health of their women and girls.

Continued: https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/how-the-u-s-election-has-an-outsized-effect-on-global-reproductive-health/

Kenya – Time to put a stop to needless deaths resulting from unsafe abortion

By Wangari Ireri
Oct 2, 2023

Lack of access to safe abortion due to known barriers remains unacceptably high. Unsafe abortion is a public health concern and according to 2013 findings of the 'Magnitude and incidences of unsafe abortion' study conducted by the Ministry of Health, unsafe abortion in the country is among the highest in Africa.

Maternal mortality is high at about 6,000 deaths per year, 17 per cent of them from complications of unsafe abortion. The study, conducted by the African Population and Health Research Centre in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, Ipas, Guttmacher Institute and other partners estimated that 464,690 induced abortions were conducted in Kenya in 2012, corresponding to an induced abortion rate of 48 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age (15-49 years), and an induced abortion ratio of 30 abortions per 100 births.

Continued: https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/health-opinion/article/2001482684/time-to-put-a-stop-to-needless-deaths-resulting-from-unsafe-abortion

02.10.2023

Opinion

African Population and Health Research Centre

Guttmacher Institute

International Safe Abortion Day

Ipas

maternal mortality

World Health Organisation

Kenya – One is too many women to lose to unsafe abortion

Thursday, September 28, 2023

By Wangari Ireri, Programme Manager, TICAH

Lack of access to safe abortion due to known barriers remains unacceptably high. Unsafe abortion is a public health concern, and according to the Ministry of Health’s 2013 Magnitude and Incidences of Unsafe Abortion in Kenya study, unsafe abortion in the country is among the highest in Africa. Maternal mortality is high at approximately 6,000 deaths per year, 17 per cent of which are due to complications from unsafe abortion.

Continued: https://nation.africa/kenya/blogs-opinion/blogs/one-is-too-many-women-to-lose-to-unsafe-abortion-4383168

28.09.2023

Opinion

African Population and Health Research Centre

International Safe Abortion Day

Magnitude and Incidences of Unsafe Abortion in Kenya

Liberia: New Report Shows 38,779 Induced Abortion Occurred in Liberia in 2021

17 APRIL 2023

Monrovia — The Ministry of Health (MoH) in collaboration with the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), along with the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) and Guttmacher, has launched the findings of abortion incidence and severity of complications in Liberia.

The Liberia National Abortion Study, which focuses on measuring abortion, the magnitude of complications, cost, and quality of post-abortion care, released the report in Monrovia on Thursday, April 13, 2023, at the Corina Hotel in Sinkor, after two years of methodology abortion incidence and severity of related-complication study.

Continued: https://allafrica.com/stories/202304170351.html

18.04.2023

News

African Population and Health Research Centre

Clinton Health Access Initiative

Dr. Francis N. Kateh

Dr. Moses Massaquoi

Guttmacher Institute

Liberia National Abortion Study

Roe v Wade: How its scrapping will affect women worldwide

The US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the longstanding abortion ruling will have a chilling effect on reproductive healthcare provision in low income and middle income countries.

BMJ 2022; 378
doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.o1844 (Published 11 August 2022)
Sally Howard, freelance journalist1, Geetanjali Krishna, freelance journalist

In 2018 a reproductive health organisation in Kenya found that anti-abortion advocates had put the address of its reproductive rights helpline on social media. “It was a veiled threat,” its programme manager, Mina Mwangi, tells The BMJ. “They wanted us to know that they knew how to get us.”

On 24 June 2022 the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that protected women’s liberty to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction.1 Sexual and reproductive health rights organisations across the world, including Mwangi’s, feared the effects of the overturning in terms of funding and potential attacks. “We are heightening our security because of how emboldened the opposition are,” Mwangi says, adding that she dreads a potential withdrawal of funds from US non-governmental organisations: her organisation receives over 50% of its funding from US donors.

Continued: https://www.bmj.com/content/378/bmj.o1844

11.08.2022

Editorial

Featured

2020 Reproductive Healthcare Bill

African Population and Health Research Centre

Legal Action Worldwide

Legal Framework on Abortion

Maputo Protocol

Marie Stopes International

maternal mortality

Maura Daly

Médecins Sans Frontières

Mina Mwangi

Payal Shah

Phonsina Archane

Physicians for human Rights

Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa

Roe v. Wade

Safe Abortion Action Fund

Sally Howard

Sarah Shaw

World Health Organization

The abortion crisis in Kenyan universities

Thursday, April 14, 2022

It usually begins with a chilling call, “Babe, we need to talk”. This is a clear signal that things are thick. After a period of careless fun with a ‘sponsor’, she misses her periods, then reality sets in.

Barely out of her teens and in the first or second year of college, she finds herself in an awkward situation: Should she procure an abortion or live with the stigma? Young, jobless and desperate, many university students prefer terminating the pregnancy.

Continued: https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/the-abortion-crisis-in-kenyan-universities-3781820

14.04.2022

Commentary

Featured

African Population and Health Research Centre

Dr Gideon Kiprono

Dr Lugaliki A. Doreen

maternal mortality

women's abortion stories

Unintended pregnancy rates are highest in Africa: a look at the complex reasons

April 12, 2022
Anthony Idowu Ajayi

The United Nations Population Fund recently released the 2022 State of World Population report. It highlights that almost half of all pregnancies between 2015 and 2019 were unintended. That amounts to roughly 121 million unintended pregnancies each year.

Unintended pregnancy is defined as pregnancy among women who were not planning to have any (more) children. This includes pregnancies that occurred earlier than desired. The report also says over 60% of unintended pregnancies end in abortion. And 45% of all abortions performed globally are unsafe. About 7 million women a year are hospitalised as a result.

Continued: https://theconversation.com/unintended-pregnancy-rates-are-highest-in-africa-a-look-at-the-complex-reasons-180454

Benin’s groundbreaking new abortion law will save the lives of many women

November 7, 2021
Ramatou Ouedraogo

Benin’s parliament has voted to legalise abortion in most circumstances. This is a groundbreaking move by the west African country given that 92% of women of reproductive age on the continent live in countries which have restrictions – some moderate, some severe – on abortions. Moina Spooner, from The Conversation Africa, asked reproductive health expert, Ramatou Ouedraogo, to unpack the significance of this ruling.

What does Benin’s new abortion law say?
Benin’s new abortion law, which amends a previous one, now states that:

Continued: https://theconversation.com/benins-groundbreaking-new-abortion-law-will-save-the-lives-of-many-women-170901

Half a million abortions in Kenya every year, despite ban? Yes – and decade-old estimate still relevant

Most of the 500,000 terminations are unsafe, prompting Ghetto Radio host Maji Maji to ask if abortion should be made legal in Kenya.

Published on 24 August 2021

Radio celebrity Julius Owino, known as Maji Maji, recently made a startling claim to start off a discussion about abortion in Kenya.

“500,000 abortions hizo uhappen Kenya [happen in Kenya] nationwide, according to statistics,” he said on Ghetto Radio.

Continued: https://africacheck.org/fact-checks/reports/half-million-abortions-kenya-every-year-despite-ban-yes-and-decade-old-estimate