A month later, she discovered the ‘forbidden fruit’ she ate joyfully in her fiancé’s house, had wonderfully transformed her into a full woman with proof of developing pregnancy to show, yet John was not ready to face the responsibility of a husband or the commitment of parenthood. “I chose a convenient solution,” admitted John, “and told Esther to have an abortion.”
For various other reasons, many other people like John and Esther think the best solution is to terminate unplanned or unwanted pregnancy. Recently a 35-year-old lady, who begged anonymity, stated: “I had just had a birth three months when I discovered I was heavy with pregnancy again. I didn’t think my husband and I could hope with fund needed to prepare for another baby. We agreed to abort the pregnancy, though we knew it was wrong.”
Unlike other couples, whose excuse for the termination of pregnancies ranges from financial challenges to failed relationship or the unfitness of the pregnancy into their mutual plans, Akintunde and Folashade’s reason to discharge the result of their well-enjoyed sexual relationship borders on averting reproach.
The paths of the young graduates crossed in Kano during the compulsory national service. Right at the orientation camp, Cupid, the Roman God of love, it seemed, played a role in their romantic relationship as the two became cynosure of other fellow members of National Youth Service Corps, who described them ‘best couple of year’ because they were inseparable like Siamese twins and head over heels in love.
Four months to the end of their service year, Folashade discovered loss of her monthly menses, but the announcement of this did not quake Akintunde or disquiet him, after all they were both responsible adults looking forward to starting a new life after getting employed and married, he thought.
However their hope crashed as bubble bust when Akintunde learnt she was his first cousin, whom she had not met since Adam, because she lived in the United States of America with her mother after she had separated from her father, his uncle.
Had the child been born, they would have been socially stigmatised and guilty of incest, a crime of two members of a family having sexual intercourse. No other explanation than ‘protection of one’s pride and reputation’ explained the decision of a former principal of a popular secondary school in old Western State, Nigeria, for considering abortion a good solution that can gloss over his randiness when he put his school’s senior girl in the family way.
The young girl, whose closeness to him arose because they both discussed school discipline matters, it was learnt, wanted the pregnancy to mature to full term, but her self-control lacking school principal told her: “If you have the baby, I shall be disciplined; my appointment will be terminated. This will be a stain on my integrity and loss of these long years I have contributed to government service. Do you want me to become a pariah personality in the society?” She answered in the negative and thereby pandered to his request for a termination of the pregnancy.
Abortion, the ending of pregnancy by the removal or forcing out from the womb of a fetus or embryo before it is able to survive on its own, is practised globally as women who have it come from every race and nationality, from various religious backgrounds, and from every level of income, education, age etc, but regardless of the situation, abortion is intensely painful but trouble-free solution if carried out by a competent doctor.
In Nigeria and Africa, many women have however died in the process of getting their pregnancies terminated. Supporting this assertion with credible evidence the Director-General (DG) of the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, (NIMR), Lagos, Prof. Innocent Ujah, who at a recent international meeting organised by the Federation of International Gynaecologists and Obstetricians (FIGO), on the prevention of unsafe abortion hosted by Nigeria, disclosed that about 34,000 women die in 760,000 abortions that are performed yearly in Nigeria.
Also, he noted that the act had contributed to 13 to 50 per cent of child and maternal mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. Also, Head of the Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, College of Medicine, Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Prof, Boniface Oye- Adeniran, told Saturday Mirror that one of the causes of maternal mortality in Nigeria today is unsafe abortion. He said that the latest maternal mortality rate as published by National Population Commission is 576 by 100, 000 live births.
The consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, said that in most surveys, abortion contributes two thirds of maternal deaths in Nigeria and victims are young people in reproductive age group of 15 to 24 years. However as good as statistical evidence of the last dons are, some experts have also said that the figures on abortion complications and risks are often understated due to the inadequate means of gathering data and unreported abortion deaths.
Researchers warn that studies are likely to underestimate the risks and complications of abortion, because of the reluctance of women to report prior abortions and the difficulty of following up women who may have been injured through abortions.
The researchers also indicate that most abortion complications are never made known to the public, because abortion has a built-in cover-up. Women want to deny it and forget it; therefore this completely skews the statistics. Furthermore, the accuracy of reported complications is largely dependent upon the willingness of abortion clinics to give out this information.
Prof. Oye-Adeniran on the other hand, is worried that Nigerian parents fail to discuss sex with their children, but he is optimistic that cases of unsafe abortions can be prevented in Nigeria if there is proper home work. “Parents should be comfortable to talk about sexuality education at home. And in the secondary school, a teacher‘s capacity should be built to teaching sexuality education.” The university don added that sexuality education is not only about sex, but also about ‘skill acquisition’ and girls’ ability to say ‘no’ to sex.
He spoke further: “In the secondary school, girls should be taught the physiology of their body; that is how their body works, and they should know that they can get pregnant at puberty. “When our daughters are going to the university, we should tell them to abstain from sex, but if they will not abstain, they should avail themselves with information on contraceptives.
“All surveys in Nigeria show that young people in the university for example don’t use any form of contraceptives, if they then they should know about emergency contraceptives which are intrauterine contraceptive device and hormone only emergency contraceptives,” he said.
He therefore, advised that the best way to prevent unsafe abortion is sexuality education, teaching about abstinence and if they will not abstain, teaching them how to prevent pregnancy through the use of regular or emergency contraceptives. Speaking also about the need for sexuality education, Joy Agbara, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) said: “Children need to be aware of their sexuality because if you don’t teach them, they will get this information.
The cyber world is open to them, so they exploit and explore all sorts of things. But if you give guided knowledge, that one is impactful, so they wouldn’t make the mistake. So education is very vital.” She also advocated family planning method for children because, “The days when we used to preach abstinence are gone.
Are our children really abstaining?” she asked. “It is time for us to come out and begin to talk about barrier contraceptive. The days when we used to stigmatise little children going to family planning are gone. It is a reality that has come to stay. Most of our children are already sexually active and stigmatisation needs to be removed.” “You need to encourage them, if you become sexually active, how do you protect yourself from sexually-transmitted infection to unwanted pregnancy.
Apart from getting pregnant, they are also at high risk of sexually-transmitted infection including HIV and AIDS because most times, you see that people that impregnate these children may not even be responsible members of the society,” Agbara emphasised. Like a preacher, Akin Gabriel, clinical psychologist at Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Yaba, Lagos, also spoke on sexuality education at home and in schools saying: “It is right to educated children about hormonal changes in their body.
Their lack of knowledge and understanding about these things accounts for why men take advantage of them. And it is men who are older that lure them to bed because they don’t understand what is going on in their bodies,” he said. He was however full of praise to the government and some non-governmental agencies for organising enlightenment campaigns, but he believes there’s room for improvement.
“They are not doing enough until a 12-year-old can freely talk about sex, but we have not got to that level. Even some churches shy away from talking about sex, but nowadays we get invited by some religious organisations to talk about these things, how to express their feelings and how to make love,” he advised.
The clinical psychologist noted that most abortions are carried out by people who are not married. He however, noted that some abortions may actually be required for health reasons maybe in order to save the life of the mother.
For example a woman who is having issues with her blood pressure (BP), as the pregnancy is growing the BP is also rising which may lead to the death of the mother if something is not done about it, most of the time the pregnancy is terminated, that is an abortion but in this case it is required to save the life.
Though the clinical psychologist wonders why most singles don’t protect themselves either with female or male condoms, he nonetheless identified the activity of quacks as one of the reasons for the increase in abortion cases and the complications that actually arise from their unprofessional practice. He identified cultural beliefs as a vital factor responsible for people’s low use birth control. “They believe if they use it, it may slow down their libido, thereby making them not to feel the real thing not minding that most of the condoms of these days are almost like you are not wearing anything.
And we have seen women who report that they don’t like men using rubber because they want to feel the real thing and that is fleshto- flesh contact. That may be responsible for people who have unwanted pregnancy that leads to abortion,” the psychologist remarked. On the advocacy to imbibe family planning as a preventive measure for these single ladies, the psychologist said our cultural belief has been the problem.
He expatiated: “It is believed that anybody who tries to get family planning is promiscuous. So, the fear of actually going to procure all these things prevents them, thereby they risk their lives with these diseases. If you go to the villages, it is not easy because they are familiar with each other.
It is a shameful thing for single ladies to walk into a shop and start talking about family planning. People would rather do it by themselves. When they now get pregnant, they go through crude method, mixing some dirty things together thereby putting their lives in danger. In the cities, condoms are freely displayed and people pick it without shame.”
Not only does every abortion kill an innocent human being in the womb; but it is also more dangerous to the mother than if she were to give birth to the child. Evidence overwhelmingly proves that the morbidity and mortality rates of legal abortion are several times higher than that for carrying a pregnancy to term.
Even though cases of infertility resulting from abortion cannot be over-emphasised, abortion causes sterility in two to five per cent of the women who have an abortion, it has been discovered. Infertility or sterility means the inability of a woman to become pregnant after about 30 days of steady sexual intercourse with a fertile man.
Also cases of psychological or emotional trauma experienced by women who have engaged in abortion are recorded in many hospitals. Studies have shown that 50 per cent of women who have had abortions report experiencing emotional and psychological problems lasting for months or years.
These include, but aren’t limited to: acute feeling of grief, depression, anger, fear of disclosure, preoccupation with babies or getting pregnant again, nightmares, sexual dysfunction, termination of relationships, emotional coldness, increased alcohol and drug abuse, eating disorders, anxiety, flashbacks of the abortion procedure, anniversary syndrome, repeat abortions, and suicide.
In order to fight high deaths from abortions, foetus expulsion or termination of pregnancy by people of different grades and culture has been legalised in some parts of the world, where citizens have the right to live their lives the way they deem fit, but it is not the case in Nigeria.
In such advanced countries, to protect women from unsafe abortions in the hands of unqualified persons, there are laws declaring that pregnancy can be terminated before a baby is viable only if deemed medically essential “to preserve the life of the mother,” but in Nigeria for lack of specific law on abortion, illegal abortion, an anti-social activity, is widespread, mostly secretly practised by quacks or para-medical personnel at the demand of paltry sum such as N5,000, or higher depending on the age of the foetus; but such carries danger to life, health and morals of the pregnant woman.
But importantly, Prof. Oye-Adeniran’s idea for the prevention of death from unsafe abortions by reducing unwanted pregnancy may be a wise one. He advised: “If you don’t have unwanted pregnancy, you will not go and induce an abortion and if you don’t induce an abortion you will not have an unsafe abortion and if you don’t have unsafe abortion you will not die of abortion-related causes.”
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