By Rosemary Ardayfio
The issue of how to stop deaths due to unsafe abortion in Africa is the centre of discussions at a four day International conference which opened in Accra yesterday.
The conference, dubbed ‘Keeping Our Promise: Addressing Unsafe Abortion in Africa” is focusing on unsafe abortion as a critical issue for reproductive health and rights in Africa and for achieving the Millennium Development Goal Five to reduce maternal mortality.
Over 250 health experts, policymakers, and practitioners from around the African region have gathered to share best practices and lessons learnt and shape an agenda for action.
The international NGO, IPAS is sponsoring the conference in collaboration with the Ghana Ministry of Health, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the Africa Women’s Development and Communications Network (FEMNET), the International Planned Parenthood Federation Africa Regional Office and Marie Stopes International.
Opening the conference on behalf of President John Evans Atta Mills, the Deputy Minister of Health, Mr. Robert Joseph Mettle Nunoo said “It is indeed the time to break the culture of silence on unsafe abortions in Africa. Women have a choice, they have a need, they need to know their rights.”
He said, “If Africa should meet the MDGs, we must give African women voices, choices and support to improve maternal health and eliminate avoidable maternal deaths’.
Touching on what Ghana had achieved in the area of reducing unsafe abortion, Mr. Mettle-Nunoo said Ghana is fortunate to have a law with enough flexibility that can be made responsive to most women’s needs.
Furthermore, he said, the country has national standards and guidelines that clearly states who can provide services, where they can be provided, and eliminate administrative barriers that make access to care difficult.
Inspite of these gains, he noted, there are still the challenges of stigma associated with abortion care among the public and inadequate knowledge of the law.
Dr. Eunice Brookman-Amissah, Ipas Vice president for Africa said the conference was the third in a series of conferences that Ipas has convened with its partners in Africa on the theme of unsafe abortion, adding that these meetings have helped spur momentum for addressing unsafe abortion in Africa, including new commitments at the highest levels.
In addition, she said, many national governments are taking unsafe abortion more seriously and several countries, including Ghana, have applied an approach pioneered by the World Health Organization to study unwanted pregnancy and abortion.
Some countries have further developed national standards and guidelines for abortion care, while in both the public and private sectors, there has been more training for diverse cadres of health care workers, including nurses and midwives, in post abortion and safe abortion care.
Dr Brookman-Amissah noted that in some countries, governments and donors are taking steps to ensure that technologies and supplies for safe abortion are approved and available, so that, finally, African women can benefit from them.
She stressed the importance of real political commitment to address unsafe abortion remains very hard but this needs to happen if we are to eliminate this totally preventable cause of maternal deaths in our countries.
In her address, Elizabeth Maguire, President and CEO, IPAS said the conference will focus on the promises that have been made to African women and girls in support of their health and rights.
These promises are embodied in dozens of international agreements, in national laws and policies, and in mission statements of non-governmental organizations, she added.
Noting that efforts to address women’s unmet need for contraception and to prevent unsafe abortion are still implemented separately in many health systems, Maguire said experience has shown that an integrated approach to contraception and safe abortion is critical to solving the global public health crisis caused by unwanted pregnancies.
She advocated for active participation of civil society, in collaboration with the public sector, which she indicated is “essential to extend the availability of comprehensive abortion care and contraception, to surface the voices and needs of women, to inform women and communities, and to mobilise action.”
She pledged that the momentum coming out of this conference would be maintained and built upon and called on participants not to waver in their determination to do what it takes to eliminate once and for all the needless deaths and injuries from unsafe abortion.
The conference Chair, Dr. Richard B. Turkson, Ghana’s Ambassador to Canada, said though there has been notable progress in addressing unsafe abortion in the last 16 years, the promises that African and global leaders made to Africa women since the International Conference on population and Development in Cairo have not been fully kept.
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