Today’s Globe and Mail offered this piece on abortion in the continent.
Legalizing abortion would be a simple way to reduce the maternal death rate. In South Africa, the number of abortion-related deaths fell by 91 per cent after the procedure was legalized in 1997, according to a Lancet study.
Though, if you highlight the South African maternal mortality rates provided by the map in the article itself, you can see that in 2008 the rate was at its highest since 1980. Since the author York focuses so much on South Africa in the article, it might be important to note that in 2002 South Africa reported over 52,000 rapes.
The fact checks continue to turn up surprising results…
…virtually all of the estimated 5.6 million abortions performed annually in Africa are unsafe. Only about 100,000 are done by properly trained professionals in a safe environment, according to a report last year by the Guttmacher Institute, an advocacy organization for sexual and reproductive health.
Oh, an ‘advocacy organization for sexual and reproductive health’, well that makes me feel better. Here’s a line from their Wikipedia entry…
The Guttmacher Institute in 1968 was founded as the “Center for Family Planning Program Development”, a semi-autonomous division of The Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Perfect.
Promoting abortion to a victimized populace seems to ignore the socioeconomic reasons for their crisis pregnancies in the first place. It may even be a little grotesque, but that could just be me.
by 
the true end game has come out..
the leftist/pro-abortionist aren’t really just for funding safe legal abortions; there aren’t enough countries that have legal abortions for them.
They themselves are now the neo-colonalists, cultural imperialists (yada yada yada) – imposing their values on what they view as black backward Africans. They are exactly what the supposedly oppose – eg. imperialists etc etc..
What I want to know is this: just how can they claim that legalizing abortion does not increase demand? I could possibly be pro-choice if this were the case, on the grounds that “They’re going to do it anyway, it may as well be safe.” Maybe.
But how does legalizing something not legitimize it? I became pregnant just after we were married, while I was still attending University. It was not a good time–hubby and I were still learning to live with one another; we were dirt poor; and I wasn’t at all sure how I would handle a baby while completing my degree. ( I realize that plenty of women end up pregnant in far worse situations, and I am grateful that at least I had a supportive family and husband.) But abortion really did seem like it would be an easy way out, and I can completely sympathize with a woman who chucks it all to the wind, and has the abortion. It’s a siren call, promising an easy solution to a very complex problem.
But it is always a terrible solution. Abortion is always a terrible choice. it is never a good choice–the only time it becomes palatable is when every other choice available to that woman is also terrible.
If we make abortion access easy, people will (and do) take the easy way out of a difficult situation. And, first of all, the world is short a child, but secondly, the woman has to suffer the after-effects. Abortion is a horrible solution to a difficult problem, and making it easily available only hurts women.
By the way, abortion in South Africa was legal in very limited circumstances, until 1997, when it became legal on demand up to 34 weeks. (Source is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_South_Africa )
From the map in the article, here are the maternal mortality figures from South Africa:
South Africa
Last Updated by editorialweb 15 hours ago
1980: 208
1990: 121
2000: 155
2008: 237
So: maternal mortality has GONE UP since abortion on demand has been available.
Coincidence? Perhaps.
Melissa, I would say that yes, abortions will still take place, even in areas where it is illegal, but to argue that we should make it easier/safer because it’s ‘going to happen anyway’ puts resources at the wrong end of the problem.
Rape is an issue in Africa, as it is in many places. York used South Africa as an example in his article, and South Africa has the highest rapes per capita in the world (seen here: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_rap_percap-crime-rapes-per-capita). It perpetuates a cycle of violence against women by simply aborting unwanted babies in cultures where women are regularly subjugated and abused. Not to mention the imperialist aspects of G8 countries deciding what is best for African nations as James mentioned.
Instead of opening up shop for abortion clinics across Africa, why aren’t we offering funds to support locally elected judicial systems that can not only convict but imprison those who commit crimes against women?
I agree with you, Jennifer. My rather long and windy point up above was to say that the claim is often made that there is no difference in the PREVALENCE of abortion in countries where it is legal compared with countries where it is illegal. I’m really questioning the validity of that claim.
Here’s my reasoning. There perhaps is a subset of women who will either try to abort themselves, or submit to a terribly unsafe abortion procedure. But, when faced with the choice of blatantly unsafe abortion, or continuing with the pregnancy, most women will resolve themselves to having a baby. (And, dare I say it, most women will welcome the baby by the time it arrives. Early rejection of a pregnancy is textbook-common, and usually resolves itself.)
However, when a country legalizes abortion and makes it easily accessible, it becomes a much more tempting solution to the woman facing a crisis pregnancy. Crisis pregnancies are not rare–never have been. (Although, I’ve got to say, I’m much more sympathetic with the woman facing a crisis pregnancy as a result of rape, than I am to one whose birth control failed.) It seems a no-brainer to me that if you make access to abortion easier, the abortion rate will increase, and subsequently, the problems associated with abortion will also increase.
I just question their statistics. Take for example, Guttmacher’s analysis of the Philippines: ( http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/2310097.html ) Guttmacher estimates that 400,000 abortions occur each year in the Philippines, a country with about 90 million people. That would make the Philippines have a higher abortion ratio than Canada.
How does that possibly make sense? The Philippines is a traditionally Catholic country, where family ties and connections are very strong. They are not a terribly promiscuous bunch (their rate of HIV+ people is among the lowest in the world). And abortion would be frowned upon by most, if not virtually everyone. How is it possible then that abortion prevalence could be that high? My answer is flawed statistics performed by biased researchers, but then, I have my own bias.
One has to question the statistics – after all, who is gathering these stats in the Third World? and of procedures that are illegal too?
I just read that the state of California doesn’t report its “legal” abortions, if a state in the US doesn’t provide stats on abortions, where are they getting the stats from countries in Africa? I would guess that they are simply making them up, with numbers that they think we will swallow.
I agree Melissa, it’s almost impossible to get accurate statistics on the issue. Especially in an area like the Philippines where abortion is illegal. The claim is that women ‘self-induce’ or use folk medicine, but something tells me this is not all going to be documented. I thought it was an estimate from Guttmacher based on the number of hospitalizations that occurred, but it seems even THAT number was just an estimate.
This is from their site:
“METHODS: Data from 1,658 hospitals were used to estimate abortion incidence in 2000 and to assess trends between 1994 and 2000, nationally and by region. An indirect estimation methodology was used to calculate the total number of women hospitalized for complications of induced abortion in 2000 (averaged data for 1999–2001), the total number of women having abortions and the rate of induced abortion.”
I’m going to use the ‘indirect estimation method’ for my taxes next year, since it’s so accurate 😉
This is the crux of abortion as a women’s health issue, we don’t have accurate information from independent groups that have nothing to gain from the results.
Please check out The Daily Femme’s article on when abortion in Africa becomes a woman’s death sentence.
http://www.thedailyfemme.com/femme/2010/05/when-abortion-is-a-woman%E2%80%99s-death-sentence/