Source: The Southern Times
In many cultures, premarital sex has for long been a taboo, but things are changing. More and more, young people are engaging in sex while still in school or soon after completing their basic studies.
The result has been an increase in the number of unplanned pregnancies outside of marriage and this comes with great social and economic costs.
It has also resulted in an increase in the number of abortions – legal and illegal – taking place across the world.
While many societies are starting to accept that young people have sex, few accept that abortion is permissible and that is why in many countries it remains illegal.
The illegality of abortion in many countries has led to a mushrooming in backyard abortionists, as well as infanticide by young mothers who just cannot cope with their new situation.
New mothers may feel overwhelmed by the idea of parenthood and can easily suffer physical and emotional changes that can lead to depression.
Some may feel convinced they will be unable to provide for the child, and that no one will assist them.
This is especially so because they are often impregnated by married men who want nothing to do with an illegitimate child, or young men who are just as overwhelmed and respond by denying responsibility.
In Namibia, the Abortion and Sterilization Act of South Africa (1975), which the country inherited at independence in 1990, criminalizes abortion.
Abortion is allowed only when a pregnancy will 'endanger the woman's life or constitute a serious threat to her physical or mental health or there must be a serious risk that the child to be born will suffer from a physical or mental defect so as to be irreparably seriously handicapped'.
The Act also allows for the termination of a pregnancy in cases of rape or incest, and this law is pretty much standard across much of Africa and in other developing regions.
For such an abortion to be sanctioned in Namibia, the woman's doctor and two others are required to certify the existence of grounds for the procedure and the operation must be performed by a medical practitioner in a state hospital or at an approved medical facility.
According to the World Health Organization, an unsafe abortion is when a procedure for terminating a pregnancy carried out either by persons lacking the necessary skills or in an environment that does not conform to minimal medical standards, or both.
It is estimated that at least 5.5 million unsafe abortions occur in Africa every year and about 40 percent of these result in deaths of the women.
Abortion, unless it is done for medical purposes, remains illegal in most of Southern Africa, except for South Africa.
The morality of abortions is an age-old debate.
But before we start judging these women, it is important to look at the root cause of this public health problem and the possible ways in which it can be addressed.
The Africa Union Maputo Plan of Action 2006, among other things, calls for the guarantee of safe motherhood, making family planning services more accessible, preventing abortion and management of complications resulting from unsafe abortion and the enhancing of sexual reproductive health services for young people.
Thirteen of SADC's 15 members are signatory to the bloc's Protocol on Gender and Development, which calls for creation and implementation of policies and programmes that address the physical, mental, sexual and reproductive health needs of women.
At national level, the majority of SADC member states have domesticated the Campaign for Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa.
Despite all these commitments, women in the region continue to die as a result of unsafe abortions.
According to the 2010 Millennium Development Goals Report, the unmet need for family planning remains moderate to high in most regions, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa; where one in four women aged 15 to 49 who are married or in a union and have expressed the desire to use contraceptives do not have access to them.
When such women fall pregnant, sometimes they may feel that their only way out is an abortion.
It is not surprising that many women who find themselves in this situation are poor and with little education.
They are often not aware of the legal route they can take to get state-sanctioned abortions.
The result is that they put sharp objects in their vaginas, swallow toxic herbal concoctions, overdose on malaria medication, or drink bleach to get rid of the unwanted pregnancy.
The risks are plain horrible and totally unacceptable at a time Africa is reporting so much progress in improving access to education and healthcare.
The starting point would probably entail improving sex education so that people grow up knowing what to do and what not to do.
Keeping the issue of contraceptive usage and abortion in the shadows does not help anyone. People should also be made aware of the legal options that are open to them so that in the even that they have an unwanted pregnancy they can pursue the matter safely.
Secondly, governments need to scale up their family planning and healthcare programmes.
According to a 2008 WHO study on unsafe abortion, unintended pregnancies and abortions can be prevented by expanding and improving family planning services and choices and reaching out to communities and under-served population groups. These could be sexually active teenagers and unmarried women, migrants or poor urban slum dwellers.
The last option is for full legalization of abortion, but this has its problems too.
For starters, it could result in increased incidence of unwanted pregnancies because people know that they can easily get an abortion.
This means greater occurrence of unprotected sex and this could lead to higher prevalence of sexually transmitted infections.
Some people argue that this can be managed, though. Consider this.
The country with the lowest abortion rate in the world is the Netherlands. Dutch law has allowed abortion on request during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy since 1979, but a comprehensive programme of sex education and family planning services has kept the abortion rate extremely low.
In contrast, consider the case of Romania, where abortion and contraception were both illegal until 1989.
The rate of abortion during this period was higher than that in any Western European country where abortion was legal, while over 10 000 women died from illegal abortions and 200 000 children were placed in orphanages. After the repeal of the restrictive legislation, maternal deaths dropped.
Even in countries that are strongly and uniformly religious, it has proved impossible to legislate morality.
The best examples are probably from Latin American where the Roman Catholic Church is dominant.
The church has historically opposed abortion while at the same time frowning upon contraception.
In Argentina almost half a million women have illegal abortions each year, and botched abortions are the leading cause of maternal deaths.
In Brazil, at least one million women have illegal abortions each year, with some estimates suggesting that the number might be as high as four million.
Teenage pregnancies are serious problem in Brazil.
Illegal abortion is the leading cause of maternal death in Chile, where 30 000 women are hospitalized annually for complications from these procedures.
In Columbia, abortion is the leading method of 'birth control' despite the fact that it is illegal, with a quarter of a million abortions being performed each year on adolescent girls alone.
There are about three countries in Africa where abortion is available on request during the early stages of pregnancy – Togo, Tunisia, and South Africa (where a new abortion law came into force in February of this year).
Tunisia has a very low abortion rate, and the incidence of abandoned children and suicides by pregnant women have almost disappeared.
On the other hand, in Zimbabwe - which has a law similar to that in force in Namibia – thousands of illegal abortions take place yearly.
Similarly, in Nigeria, where abortion is illegal except to save the life of the mother, illegal abortions are rife.
One study found that complications from unsafe abortions caused 72 percent of all deaths among Nigerian women under the age of 19.
The problem of unsafe abortion has received international attention.
At the 1994 UN Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, representatives from 180 nations agreed to a programme of action that included the following statement on abortion: 'All governments and relevant intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations are urged to strengthen their commitment to women's health, to deal with the health impact of unsafe abortion as a major public health concern and to reduce the recourse to abortion through expanded and improved family planning services.'
In Germany, the Constitutional Court ruled that the state has a duty to make sure that a woman is not seeking an abortion because of pressure from her husband, her family or the social environment.
The state must ensure that women will not be forced to suffer heavy personal or financial setbacks as a consequence of bearing a child, by providing essential services such as affordable child care.
Abortion counselling should include assistance with practical problems such as housing and employment, and there must be offers of follow-up support after the birth of the child, as well as information about how to prevent future pregnancies.
According to the Legal Assistance Centre ('Abortion and Infanticide'), abortions can be avoided should all governments meet their obligations to the various international, regional and national policies they have signed to ensure that women's sexual and reproductive rights.
But it must be underlined that making abortion legal is not the most effective way of handling the matter. Proper counseling and education are required at all levels so that unwanted pregnancies through consensual sex become a thing of the past.
An unwanted pregnancy as a result of rape is another matter.
Further, social security nets should be sufficiently bolstered so that people do not opt for unsafe abortions because they feel they will not be able to provide for the child.