Letter to the Editor: On Lagos State’s new abortion guidelines
In an article published by The News Guru entitled Legalization of abortion in Lagos State, author Sonnie Ekwowusi urges Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to “withdraw the abortion directives” in the recently-released Lagos State Guidelines on Safe Termination of Pregnancy for Legal Indications. He argues that the guidelines cannot be enforced because they would be inconsistent with the existing legal and policy framework of Nigeria and Lagos State on abortion. He suggests that the guidelines effectively legalises abortion in Lagos State.
Mr. Ekwowusi is either misinforming the public or is himself misinformed, and it is dangerous to give a platform to someone who seeks to deliberately misinform the public. The guidelines do not represent new legislation or the ‘legalization’ of abortion. They simply serve to operationalize existing legislation on abortion in Nigeria and update the standards for the provision of care within the ambit of the criminal law of Lagos State. Hence, they are completely consistent with existing legal and policy frameworks.
In Nigeria, abortion is allowed in circumstances where the continuation of the pregnancy threatens the life of the pregnant woman. Otherwise, it is criminalized. Revision of penal and criminal laws in Nigeria, however, can be carried out at the State level. In 2011, the Lagos State House of Assembly updated the Criminal Code, providing for abortion to save the life and protect the physical health of the woman. Meanwhile, in 2015, the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Act was passed, protecting the rights of gender-based violence survivors to receive comprehensive medical services.
In 2018, the development of the Lagos State Guidelines began with the ‘Safe Engage Project’ led by the Lagos State Ministry of Health and hosted by the Society for Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Nigeria (SOGON), with support from the Population Reference Bureau (PRB). The guidelines were modelled after the National Guidelines for Legal Indications prepared by the Federal Ministry of Health and designed to provide guidance to medical practitioners and other stakeholders on the grounds on which abortion. Mr. Ekwowusi cannot claim to have better input than all of these experts who worked on this guideline over the years.
Such grounds for allowing abortion are in keeping with the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, also known as the Maputo Protocol, which Nigeria ratified in 2004. Article 14 (2) (c) of the Maputo Protocol urges all ratifying countries to “protect the reproductive rights of women by authorizing medical abortion in cases of sexual assault, rape, incest, and where the continued pregnancy endangers the mental and physical health of the mother or the life of the mother or the fetus”.
Mr. Ekwowusi repeatedly uses children’s rights and cites the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which Nigeria has also ratified, to argue that provision of abortion is tantamount to the murder of children. Meanwhile, the Committee on the Rights of the Child has made clear distinctions on the legal identity of children and fetuses by ruling on at least three occasions.
Mr. Ekwowusi invokes the religious and cultural context of Nigeria in his appeal to have the new Lagos State Guidelines withdrawn. However, he neglects to mention that abortion is permissible in Islam to save the life of the mother, while the bible is completely silent and does not prevent abortion. Yet, despite this context and Nigeria’s restrictive law on abortion, more than a million women and pregnant people induce abortions every year in Nigeria; this number represents one in seven pregnancies ending in abortion. This shows that Nigerian women are not culturally opposed to abortion, as they clearly partake in the interest of their lives.
While Mr. Ekwowusi correctly admits that “abortion is a medical procedure”, he over-emphasizes the health risks associated with having a safe and legal abortion. Abortion, when carried out using a method recommended by WHO, appropriate to the pregnancy duration, and by someone with the necessary skills, is very safe, even safer than childbirth. But when such conditions are not satisfied, an abortion may be classified as an unsafe abortion. Hence, the use of safe or unsafe is not as arbitrary as Mr. Ekwowusi suggests.
For a country that is ranked as having the second-largest burden of maternal mortality in the world, a more proactive stance on ensuring access to safe abortion is much welcome. Maternal mortality as a result of unsafe abortions are suffered more by women living in rural areas, younger women, women with little or no education, and poor women. These deaths could be prevented by allowing access to safe abortion. No woman should compromise her physical or mental health from conditions that can be prevented or addressed.
The Lagos State Guidelines are also timely as it comes on the heels of the updated World Health Organization (WHO) Guidelines on Safe Abortion, which recommends the full decriminalization of abortion and repeal of laws and regulations restricting access to abortion. According to the WHO guidelines, restrictive laws do not reduce the need and demand for abortion; these only delays the provision of care or lead women to seek out unsafe methods of abortion.
While Nigeria’s abortion laws are a far leap from WHO policy recommendations, the Lagos State Guidelines represent an important step in recognizing how restrictive laws on abortion result in confusion among service providers and stall effective implementation at appropriate levels of care.
The presence of clear guidelines will help ensure that service providers can provide care according to appropriate healthcare standards and best practices and decrease the incidence of preventable death and disability.
To Mr. Ekwowusi and others like him who continue to misinform the public, we must state unequivocally: abortion is healthcare, and abortion is a human right.
About the Nigerian Feminist Forum
The Nigerian Feminist Forum (NFF) is a public policy forum that brings together Nigerian feminists. It is an ideological and political space, that is made up of individuals and organizations located both in Nigeria and the diaspora, who are committed to challenging and dismantling patriarchal oppressions that perpetuate gender inequality. The NFF creates a space for women, organizations, and individuals to build formal and informal networks, organizations, personal friendships, and collective feminist energies.
The NFF is guided by the African Feminist Charter. Read the charter here; http://bit.ly/3qSXob0
