‘Abortion is not a family planning method’ (Women's Page)

Sat.Oct 31, 2009


THE Founder and Programmes Manager of the Ghana Women Voices Foundation a non-governmental organisation (NGO), Nana Yaa Appiah, has advised women not to use abortion as a family planning method.
She said to avoid having unwanted pregnancies, women needed to adopt safe practices, such as abstinence, use of family planning methods and remaining faithful to their sexual partners.
Speaking at a workshop organised by the NGO in Accra on the theme, “Pharmacists, Reducing Unsafe Abortions”, Nana Yaa, who is also a pharmacist, said since pharmacists had not been trained to provide abortion care, they should refer women who approached them for such services to the appropriate health centres for counselling.
She said “on issues concerning abortion, pharmacists should not let their personal values on the matter cloud their professional responsibilities”.
Unsafe abortion is defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a procedure for terminating unwanted pregnancy either by persons lacking the necessary skills or in an environment lacking minimal medical standards or both.
A study conducted in 1998 by the immediate past Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Professor Agyeman Badu Akosa, indicated that 30 per cent of all maternal deaths in Ghana were through unsafe abortion.
Nana Yaa reminded her colleagues that the legal framework of abortion in Ghana limited the pharmacist’s role to counselling appropriately and warned that those who were found to have administered medicines with the intent to clear an unwanted pregnancy would be held liable.
In a presentation, an obstetrician/gynaecologist at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Dr Ali Samba, said nearly
68,000 women died every year from complications related to unsafe abortion, adding that 13 per cent of all maternal deaths were due to unsafe abortion.
Quoting from the WHO, Dr Samba said approximately 95 per cent of unsafe abortions occurred in developing countries, including Ghana.
He stated that Africa had the highest rate of abortion-related deaths of any region.
“Estimated 4.2 million unsafe abortions each year; 80 women die from unsafe abortion every day; 30,000 women die every year; unsafe abortion causes 12 per cent of all deaths from complications of pregnancy and childbirth,” stated the 2004 WHO report.
The Ghana Women Voices Foundation is an organisation set up two years ago to improve the lives of women and girls using a multi-pronged approach such as mentoring programmes, health awareness campaigns and the execution of projects relating to career guidance for girls and boys in second-cycle schools.