[The methods they use are shocking – to say the least. Jan]

Mansah (Not real name), a teenager was shocked when she discovered she was pregnant. With the assistance of her boyfriend she laid hands on gun powder which her friends told her could destroy the foetus and help her to abort the pregnancy.

After inserting the gunpowder into her private part it ‘exploded’ and she had to be rushed to the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.

“Her genitals were in a terrible state when she arrived, the vagina was enlarged and swollen,” says Dr. Ali Sambah of the Gynaecology and Obstetrics department of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.

But it is not all young girls who attempt to use crude methods to abort pregnancies survive.

In the case of Aku, also (not real name), her boyfriend pressed on her stomach in a bid to destroy the pregnancy but ended up blowing up her spleen. Other methods used are coffee, ground beer bottle, alcoholic drinks, ground ants, cockroaches and herbal preparations ingested into the vagina or as enemas

Dr. Sambah said the sad aspect of Aku’s case was that she was even not pregnant. Speaking at a seminar for journalists on unsafe abortion in Accra, Dr. Sambah revealed that a lot of young girls were losing their lives through unsafe abortion.

The fact that one misses a period does not mean one is pregnant,” he said.

He explained that since young people are sexually active, as soon as they miss their period they assume they are pregnant.

He said some of the girls who undertake such practices are sometimes not even pregnant but had just missed their period.

According to Dr. Sambah since it is not easy for young girls to access safe abortion they resort to all sort of means including inserting sticks, wires, drinking poisonous substances and all kinds of herbal preparations to get rid of an unwanted pregnancy.

For those who opt to have their pregnancies aborted by quack doctors, Dr. Sambah said no history or physical examination to either confirm or determine the length of pregnancy is taken and it usually involves the use of all sorts of medications some of which are supplied by nurses, especially male nurses, pharmacists.

Instruments used are sometimes not sterilel and not well processed, while the site for the abortion is usually not appropriate. Providers, he said are also not skilled.

Giving a background to the problem in Ghana, a paediatrician and gender consultant Dr. Afua Hesse said in 1985, doctors in Ghana spearheaded an amendment of the criminal code on abortion which was successful to enable women undergo abortion under certain conditions.

Dr. Hesse said maternal mortality in Ghana ranges from 650/100,000 live births to 870/100,000 live births with a national average of 214/100,000 live births, with three northern regions worst hit.

A public health officer, Dr. Joe Taylor said about 55,000 abortions are performed each day worldwide with 95 percent of them coming from the developing world.

He said a ratio of 1:4 pregnancies are terminated by induced abortion.

Also one in 150 women are at a risk of dying from unsafe abortion, while 1 in 250 women from Asia have the same risk.

However in Latin America and North America the figures are different.

One in 800 women from Latin America risk dying from unsafe abortion while 3, 700 women in northern countries risk dying from unsafe abortion.

He said women resort to abortions because of sexual coercion, contraceptive failure, social and economic reasons, fear of parents and lack of family planning services.

“Unsafe abortion is one of the most preventable causes of maternal deaths and morbidity,” Dr. Taylor said adding preventing maternal deaths and illness is an issue of social justice and women’s human rights,” she said.

“We need to work together as partners, we need more commitment, more compassion and affirmative action,” he told journalists.

To him, there is no alternative to ensuring the safety of women, until safe abortion services are made accessible to them.

However, Ghana’s laws do not make it possible for any woman to walk into a health facility and demand safe abortion.

According to Nana Oye Lithur, a legal practitioner, abortion is legal in three cases in Ghana. First is when the pregnancy is as a result of rape, defilement of female idiot and incest.

Secondly abortion is allowed, when the conception poses a risk to the life of the woman, or can cause injury to physical or mental health.

Thirdly, abortion is allowed legally if the foetus is having a serious abnormality or disease.

“In all circumstances in which abortion is not against the law, it should be safe and women should have access to management of complications arising out of abortion,” Nana Oye Lithur quoted a document emanating from the International Conference on population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo in 1994.

Source: AllAfrica.Com
URL: http://allafrica.com/stories/200507190531.htm…/p>