Last week, more than 200 providers, policymakers, advocates and NGO workers put abortion on the table, and reaffirmed the promises African leaders and governments have made to African women.
Approximately 26,000 African women die as a result of unsafe abortion every year. Another 1.7 million are hospitalised, and many others also suffer serious health complications, but never seek treatment. We can save these women.
Religious scholars discussing Islam and abortion note that religion gets confused with culture, but education, exposure and understanding of one’s religion is liberating.
How much does unsafe abortion cost national health systems? This is exactly the question that a group of medical experts and health researchers set out to answer in 2007, using the example of the east African country Ethiopia.
In a region with restrictive abortion laws and low contraceptive prevalence, young women face significant barriers both to preventing unwanted pregnancy and to safe abortion care.
Access to medical abortion could save tens of thousands of women in Africa each year, by providing a safe alternative to unsafe abortion and a treatment for incomplete abortion or miscarriage.
