A Human Rights group found that due to strict abortion laws, a high rate of women in Senegal
are killing their newborn children, in some cases by leaving them in the wild to starve
or be
eaten.
Due to Senegal’s abortion laws, which the UN calls some of the world’s strictest,
if a
woman wants an abortion, she needs three doctors to sign off on the procedure and those
doctors have to determine that having the child would be life threatening.
As a result, Reuters
reports that 38% of all women jailed in Senegal were charged with either infanticide or having
an illegal abortion and up to 13% of maternal deaths are due to illegal abortions.
And Senegal is
just one example of how strict abortion laws can negatively affect a country's population.
According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, more than a quarter of the world live in a
country with highly restrictive abortion laws, meaning abortions are prohibited or allowed
only
if it will save the mother’s life.
And an estimated 47,000 women die per year as a result from
unsafe abortions .
Many of these happen in areas of the world where abortion laws are the strictest.
According
to the World Health Organization, more than 97% of abortions in Africa and 95% in Latin
America are unsafe.
These are two regions where the vast majority of the countries have strict
abortion laws.
They also have higher rates of abortion by about 10% .
Studies show when a country legalizes or liberalizes abortion, things do get better.
In 1996 South Africa legalized abortion up to 12 weeks without any restrictions, a change
from
only allowing it when the women’s health was in danger or in cases of rape or incest.
As a result
deaths from unsafe abortions dropped by over 90%.
Similarly in Nepal the number of women
admitted to the hospital with complications from unsafe abortions fell drastically after
they
legalized abortion in 2004.
This obviously does not tell the whole story.
Even in some countries with legal abortion,
women are still unsafe.
This is because abortions are being done with unsanitary equipment or
by untrained people.
There are stigmas attached to abortion that lead some women to find more
secretive, yet dangerous, alternatives.
There is also a huge need for education and birth control in many countries.
82% of
unwanted pregnancies around the world are from countries where women don’t have access
to proper contraception, either from lack of knowledge, lack of access or lack of personal
freedoms.
Namely, partners forbidding the use of contraceptives.
So, while legalizing or
liberalizing abortion does help, birth control education and better funding for legal abortion
clinics are also widely needed.