Dorothy Kweyu
8 April 2008
Nairobi — A US agency has listed Kenya among 69 countries that it describes as having "the most restrictive laws" on abortion.
According to the New York-based Centre for Reproductive Rights, the countries, which account for 26 per cent of the world's population, only allow abortion to save a woman's life. Three of them - Chile, El Salvador and Nicaragua - completely outlaw abortion.
In the East African Community region, older members Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda are in the "most restrictive" category, while newcomers Rwanda and Burundi allow abortion to preserve physical health.
In contrast, 60 per cent of the world's people, mostly in the north, live in countries where induced abortion is permitted for a wide range of reasons or with no restrictions. In Africa, only South Africa and Tunisia have no restrictions on abortion.
Reasons for abortion include rape, incest, mental disability on the mothers' part, foetal impairment, and a woman's age or capacity to care for a child.
Most countries where access to abortion is not restricted allow abortion up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, although wide variations exist within this category.
Austria, Belgium, Cambodia, France, Germany and Romania have a ceiling at 14 weeks, while Sweden's limit is 18 weeks.
Singapore allows abortion up to 24 weeks, while Canada, China, Korea and Vietnam do not specify any limits, suggesting that a foetus may be aborted at any time before natural birth.
It is not clear from the Centre for Reproductive Rights' chart whether The Netherlands, Puerto Rico and the US, whose laws do not limit pre-viability abortion (that is within four months of pregnancy), belong in this category. In the US, however, federal law applies, and abortion restrictions are determined by individual states.
Although a number of countries including Denmark, Greece, Norway, Portugal, Turkey and the United States have liberal abortion laws, minors may only abort with parental consent. A married Turkish woman may only abort with her husband's consent.
Malawi not only restricts abortion to saving the mother's life, but also requires spousal consent. The only other African countries that require spousal authority are Equatorial Guinea (which also requires parental authority) and Morocco.
A number of countries allow abortion in cases of rape. They include Mali and Sudan, which also number among the "most restrictive" category, as do Bhutan, Brazil, Mexico and Panama.
Among 34 countries that allow abortion to preserve the mother's physical health and/or to save her life, African countries Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Togo and Zimbabwe also allow rape as a reason for abortion. The other countries in this category are Bolivia, Poland, and Uruguay in Latin America, and the Republic of Korea.
Other African countries that allow abortion in cases of rape are Botswana, Ghana, Liberia, Namibia, Seychelles and Swaziland. Together with 13 others that allow abortion to save a woman's life or preserve her physical health, these countries also allow abortion to preserve mental health.
In Argentina and Ecuador, which allow abortion to preserve a woman's physical or mental health, abortion is also permitted if a rape victim is mentally disabled.
Quite a few countries allow abortion in cases of incest. They include Mali, which is also on the list of countries with the most restrictive abortion laws. The others are Benin, Burkina Faso, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Togo, and Zimbabwe, where abortion is also allowed to preserve a woman's physical health or to save her life.
A number of countries that allow abortion to preserve mental health also permit it where pregnancy results from incest. African countries in this category include Botswana, Ghana, Liberia, Namibia, Seychelles and Swaziland.
African countries that allow abortion on grounds of foetal impairment include Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Ethiopia, Guinea, Togo, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
At the UN sponsored International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, 1994, the programme of action adopted stated that prevention of unwanted pregnancies must be given highest priority and every attempt made to eliminate the need for abortion.
The ICPD document, which ruled out abortion as family planning, urged Governments and relevant non-governmental organisations to strengthen their commitment to women's health, to deal with the impact of unsafe abortion as a major public health concern and to reduce the recourse to abortion through expanded and improved family planning services.
Scrutiny of the Centre for Reproductive Rights' chart indicates that abortion for family planning is going on in a number of countries. In the chart's five categories, those adhering to the Cairo norm that allows abortion only to save the woman's life are described as "most restrictive."
Other than the three countries that completely outlaw abortion, about 40 per cent of the world's population applies the health parameter, including mental health in 4.2 per cent of the world.
Countries whose laws allow socioeconomic grounds for abortion can be regarded as using abortion for family planning, contrary to ICPD's programme of action.
This category accounts for 21.3 per cent of the world's population, and significant members include Australia, Great Britain, India and Japan. Zambia is the only African country on this list.
Beyond health grounds, reasons for abortion are to say the least tenuous, and are at the background of a raging debate revolving around the woman's womb; to abort or not to abort. And it is a debate with far-reaching ethical and political implications.
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