Abortion stigma wrecks marriages

Stigma and complications associated with backstreet abortions in Malawi are wrecking marriage. Our contributor FRANCIS TAYANJAH-PHIRI shares the experience of a woman who lost her womb after clandestinely terminating an unwanted pregnancy:

Eneless, a 25-year-old woman from Lilongwe, knows the devastating consequences of backstreet abortion fuelled by Malawi’s restrictive colonial laws.

She survived a concealed abortion while in secondary school.

Over five years on, the experience continued to haunt her.

“I thank God for saving my life after losing a lot of blood, but little did I know this would haunt my entire life,” she says.

When Eneless married her college sweetheart, she hoped for a bright future, but their union fell apart when Eneless was unable to conceive.

This did not endear her with the man who repeatedly told her he wanted to have girls as beautiful as their mother.

For four years, no child had arrived as pressure from Joel and his family mounted.

They urged Joel to “try elsewhere”, eventually leading to a bitter divorce.

“With that, came the resentment from the man’s family and other relatives,” Eneless says. “A child born out of  wedlock created more trouble that led to a bitter divorce.”

Eneless’ story is not unique in a country where abortion is casually associated with women who survive complications of clandestine abortions to evade the law, which prescribes 14 years’ imprisonment for the offence.

However, the myths conceal the agony faced by women with complications of unsafe abortions.

Health workers say the survivors often present too late and in life-and-death conditions.

The complications of unsafe abortion account for up to 18 percent of pregnancy-related deaths in the country, according to the Ministry of Health.

“Some come with rotten uteruses and we have to remove them to avert deadly infections. This leaves them unable to give birth,” said a doctor at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Blantyre.

The loss of fertility, which is casually blamed on abortion, exposes women to stigma and discrimination.

Married women are not less ostracised than Eneless.

When a Mulanje-based couple with three children decided they did not want any more, they went to the nearest public hospital to request an abortion. However, they were denied as the current law restricts abortion to situations where a woman’s life is in grave danger.

Desperate, the woman confided in friends who suggested a private clinic, but she could not afford.

She turned to a traditional healer where she suffered severe bleeding.

“They rushed to a local public hospital, where her womb was removed,” says Senior Chief Chikumbu of Mulanje. “As soon as she lost her womb, her husband divorced her.”

Stories like these have persuaded Chikumbu to become a safe motherhood and sexual rights advocate. She is also an ambassador of Mwana wa Mzako Ngwako Yemwe Campaign girls’ right to safe sexual and reproductive health future nationwide.

“Many marriages are being broken because a woman is unable to bear children because, at some point, she had an abortion using an unsafe procedure that affected her womb,” Chikumbu says.

The traditional leader also handles marital disputes in which men seek divorce because their wives cannot conceive.

She says: “These women are rebuked in society and even subjected to some dirty ways by traditional healers in their quest to bear children.

“But mostly, you find that these women are those that once had clandestine abortions.”

Chikumbu backs rising calls for the law to provide more grounds for safe abortion provided by skilled health workers in health centres.

Dr Chisale Mhango, a reproductive health expert and researchers says women with abortion complications endure untold misery and stigma.

“Safe abortion prevents these complications,” he says. “Therefore, it affords women the dignity of safely managing their reproductive choices. “Sadly, some men in Malawi think without a womb, there is no marital’ obligation.”

He censures the common belief that reduces a woman’s value to her fertility.

The stories of Eneless and other women amplify the demands for an review of the country’s abortion laws and a shift in societal attitudes.

Mhango narrates: “Because illegal abortion happens in an unsterile environment outside the hospital, the most common complication is infection in the womb.

“The remains of pregnancy in the womb provide a favourable medium where bacteria multiply fast and affect the tubes where the germs cause pus, which blocks the tubes permanently even after antibiotic treatment. As a result, the eggs from the ovaries cannot meet the male partner’s sperm. This is why the woman is unable to become pregnant again.”

Lawyer Godfrey Kangaude, who advocates for sexual and reproductive health rights, calls for modernisation of the restrictive abortion laws inherited from Britain during Independence in 1964.

He states: “The law is harsh and severe. It condemns women to injury, health complications and death. 

“Men, protected from these consequences, are often quick to blame and support the continuation of these oppressive laws just like the good ole Pharisees who brought the [adulterous] woman to Jesus [to be stoned to death in line with the Laws of Moses].”