The unspoken truth: Married women and illegal abortions

Contrary to expectations, married women top the list of those seeking illegal abortions, regardless of their religious affiliation.

A 2016 Law Commission Report on the Review of the Law on Abortion says over 80 percent of the 144 000 girls and women who procure abortion every year are married women.

This phenomenon raises questions about the factors driving their decisions.

Meet Jane, a 35-year-old Christian and Amira, a 28-year-old Muslim. Both are married with children, but their stories share a common thread—they both procured illegal abortions.

Jane, a devout Christian, felt overwhelmed when she discovered she was pregnant again, just a year after her last child. With her husband’s income barely covering their expenses, she feared another mouth to feed would plunge them into poverty.

Despite her faith’s stance on abortion, Jane felt it was the only way to protect her family’s well-being.

Amira, on the other hand, had two children and was pregnant again. Her husband, though loving, struggled with addiction and Amira feared raising another child in an unstable environment.

She believed abortion was her only option to prevent further suffering.

Why do married women like Jane and Amira opt for abortions? Reasons include:

lPressure from husbands or families to maintain a certain lifestyle

The Law Commission Report observes that four studies done to examine the abortion situation in Malawi make the shocking revelations about married women.

These 2015 studies are A Strategic Assessment of Unsafe Abortion in Malawi, Investigating Social Consequences of Unwanted Pregnancy and Unsafe Abortion in Malawi, Estimating the Incidence of Abortion in Malawi and Cost Analysis of Abortion in Malawi.

They further reveal that women from different religious groups having procured abortion in 2015 with Catholics at 23.3 percent, Presbyterian at 28.5 percent, 22.7 percent were other Christians and 10.3 percent were Muslims, 22.5 percent were by other Christians and o.7 percent were by those with no religon .

Section 243 of the Penal Code, Chapter 7:01 of the Laws of Malawi says: “A person is not criminally responsible for performing in good faith with reasonable care and skill a surgical operation upon any person for his benefit or upon an unborn child for the preservation of the mother’s life, if the performance of the operation is reasonable having regard to the patient’s state at the time and to all circumstances of the case.”

Malawi Union Conference of Seventh Day Adventist Church president pastor Tony Nyirenda chastises abortion under whatever circumstances.

“Let’s remember that life begins at conception and not at birth. Therefore any termination of pregnancy is termination of life in the womb. In Exodus 20:13, God the creator of life said: ‘You shall not murder,”’ he said.

Nyirenda said abortion should only be permitted if the bay dies from natural causes in the womb.

“The church of the living God discourages women from practising abortion because it is murder. Be faithful to the Lord your God and avoid abortion. So, let the child be born naturally and the Lord will help you to raise that child,” he said.

While religion plays a significant role in shaping beliefs, real-life circumstances often lead individuals to make difficult choices.

Coalition for the Prevention of Unsafe Abortion (Copua) chairperson Mateyu Msisha said married women abort because of two possible reasons.

He suggested the failure of contraceptives and preservation of marriage, especially for women whose husbands migrate forcing them to engage in extra marital affairs in the long run.

Msisha observed that religion should not impede on the law, noting that morality has nothing to do with the reality where abortion is rampant regardless of what religious leaders advance.

“Abortion is a human right issue where women should be allowed to make decisions pertaining to their bodies. It is also a social justice issue where those from the rural areas and marginalised lack access to properly equipped abortion facilities and well-trained health care providers, like their urban counterparts, leaving them highly exposed to complications,” he said.

Msisha dismissed assertions that a woman’s right to decide what to do with her body would open a can of worms for reckless living and haphazard abortions.

He said the abortion law is restrictive as it allows only for abortion to preserve the wife of the woman.

The lawyer said proposed amendments would allow termination of a pregnancy if the continued pregnancy would endanger the life of the pregnant woman, to prevent injury to the physical and mental health of the pregnant woman, there is severe malformation of the foetus so that it cannot survive after birth and the pregnancy is a result of rape, incest or defilement.

Apart from married and religious women aborting, statistics show the annual abortion rate was 38 induced abortions per 1 000 women aged 15 to 49.

Out of the yearly 141 000 women who abort, 60 percent result in complications.

According to Msisha, the cost of post-abortion care is $1million (about K1.7 billion) per year or $16 per simple procedure.

The Commission report recommends s to the liberalisation of the abortion law to “cater for certain justifiable instances where termination of a pregnancy should be permissible.’