A question of balance - 16 Feb 2009

One of the articles in today's newsletter reports on the problems that women in East Timor have in obtaining a safe, legal abortion. The laws in East Timor make abortion a difficult - and so unsafe - option for women. As a result, women die, or become extremely ill, and 40% of emergency obstetric care is given to women who are ill as a result of unsafe, illegal abortions.

Until South Africa introduced rational abortion laws that allowed women the choice of terminating their pregnancies, this was the case here as well. In fact, while I was training, most of the emergency obstetrics I saw was as a result of back street abortions.

However, women in South Africa may still be denied their right to a safe, legal abortion because of lack of referral by health care professionals who feel that they have the right to prevent a women exercising her right to safe termination of pregnancy. And in many cases, particularly in the rural areas, women will not know where else to turn and will still land up using back street abortionists.

Under South African law any health professional may, for reasons of religion or other ideology, refuse to carry out an abortion themselves, but they are legally required to refer a woman seeking a termination to someone who will help her. This doesn't always happen.

Termination of pregnancy - abortion - is never an easy option. In an ideal world it would not happen. Every pregnancy would be planned and the child wanted. But we do not live in an ideal world. We have a rational and humane abortion law in South Africa - women must be allowed access to it. And other countries must realise that women will take desperate measures to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, even at the cost of their lives.