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Africa: Global Gag Rule
AFRICA ACTION
Africa Policy E-Journal
March 26, 2003 (030326)
Africa: Global Gag Rule
(Reposted from sources cited below)
This posting contains a press release and the declaration from a
consultation on unsafe abortion held in Addis Ababa from March 5-7,
2003, as well as two short feature stories on the consultation from
African Gender and Media. The consultation, the first on the topic
held on a continent-wide basis, was sponsored by a number of
African and international groups working on women's reproductive
rights. Among the resolutions was a strong condemnation of the Bush
administration policy called the "global gag rule," which bars U.S.
assistance for family planning programs that also provide
counseling on abortion.
Additional information about the Addis Ababa consultation can be
found on the website of Ipas, at
http://www.ipas.org, and at
http://www.genderlinks.org.za/actiongem/Home-page.htm, which has
reports from the consultation provided by African Gender and Meida.
Currently there is also uncertainty and internal debate in
Washington about the extent to which this rule will also be applied
to new U.S. funds promised by President Bush to fight global aids.
A large number of U.S. and international groups, including Africa
Action, have spoken out against the Global Gag Rule, in a series of
recent letters to President Bush. Copies of the letters, and latest
news on developments, are available on
http://www.genderhealth.org,
the website of Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE), 6930
Carroll Avenue, Suite 910, Takoma Park, MD 20912 USA. tel:
301-270-1182, fax: 301-270-2052, email:
change@genderhealth.org
+++++++++++++++++end summary/introduction+++++++++++++++++++++++
Saving Women's Lives from Unsafe Abortion
March 18, 2003
African health leaders, lawyers, women's advocates call for action
to save women's lives from unsafe abortion
Participants in Africa's first regional consultation on unsafe
abortion speak out against the Global Gag Rule, saying it impedes
efforts to reduce unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortion.
For more information, contact:
Merrill Wolf
Senior Advisor, External Communications, Ipas
Email: wolfm@ipas.org
Website: http://www.ipas.org
Phone: 919-960-5612, 800-334-8446 , Fax: 919-929-0258
300 Market Street, Suite 200, Chapel Hill, NC 27516 USA
Ipas Africa Alliance PO Box 1192
Rhapta Road/Mvuli Road Junction,
00200, City Square, Nairobi, Kenya
Tel: 254-2-445900 :: Fax: 254-2-449177
e-mail: boluoch@ipas.or.ke
March 18, 2003 - More than 100 African leaders from 15 countries
who attended the continent's first regional conference on unsafe
abortion concluded deliberations in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, March 7
with a strong call for action to address this global public-health
problem. Unsafe abortion results in the deaths of about 30,000
African women every year, according to the World Health
Organization.
The multidisciplinary group of experts attending the "Action to
Reduce Maternal Mortality in Africa" conference included health
ministers, parliamentarians, health-care professionals, women's
advocates, lawyers and others. They called on African governments
to uphold commitments under numerous international agreements to
address unsafe abortion effectively, including by increasing the
availability of information and services to help prevent unwanted
pregnancy and by making safe abortion available to the full extent
of local and national laws.
Participants committed themselves to educate the full spectrum of
stakeholders affected by unsafe abortion about its tragic,
preventable impact and to work more effectively within existing
legislation and health systems to make high-quality, comprehensive
reproductive-health care universally available.
"The primary interest of everyone involved in this conference is to
save women's lives from unsafe abortion - something we know how to
do but for which the global community has lacked political will,"
said Dr. Eunice Brookman-Amissah, a former Minister of Health of
Ghana who now heads the Ipas Africa Alliance for Women's
Reproductive Health and Rights. Along with several other
organizations, the Ipas Africa Alliance co-sponsored the
conference.
"No one wants to promote abortion," she continued. "It's true that
liberalization of abortion laws has been shown to reduce maternal
mortality, but the immediate priority is not always to legalize
abortion. It is instead to make safe services available to the full
extent of existing laws."
Brookman-Amissah noted that every African country permits abortion
in some circumstances but that women rarely have access to care to
which they are legally entitled. "That is why so many women and
girls are maimed or die," she said.
Participants also called on African governments and the global
community to be accountable to citizens and other stakeholders by
opposing the Global Gag Rule imposed in January 2001 by the
administration of U.S. President George W. Bush. This policy
disqualifies nongovernmental organizations outside the United
States from receiving U.S. family planning funding if they provide
counseling on abortion, provide legal abortion services except in
very narrow circumstances, or participate in political debate
surrounding abortion.
"By reducing funds available for preventive family planning, the
Global Gag Rule clearly impedes efforts to reduce unsafe abortion,"
said Brookman-Amissah. "Contrary to its stated intentions, the
policy results in more unwanted pregnancies, more unsafe abortions,
and more deaths of women and girls. We who have seen those effects
first-hand can no longer tolerate silence about the gag rule's
tragic effects."
Conference participants decried the lack of attention to
reproductive health in general and to unsafe abortion in particular
in programs to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, which
United Nations member nations adopted in 2000. "Maternal mortality
cannot and will not be reduced by 75 percent by 2015, nor will
goals related to poverty reduction and economic development be
achieved, without attention to unsafe abortion," Brookman-Amissah
said.
Communique from the "Action to Reduce Maternal Mortality in
Africa" Regional Consultation on Unsafe Abortion
March 5-7, 2003 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Note: Cosponsors of the consultation were the Amanitare African
Partnership for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights of Women
and Girls, the Centre for Gender and Development of the Economic
Commission of Africa, the Commonwealth Regional Health Community
Secretariat, the Ipas Africa Alliance for Women's Reproductive
Health and Rights, the Regional Prevention of Maternal Mortality
Network and the UNFPA Country Support Team for East and Central
Africa. Representatives of multilateral and bilateral donor and
technical support agencies also attended the consultation. Neither
cosponsorship nor representation at the consultation implies
endorsement by these organizations of the contents of this
communique.
Background and Preamble
We, the 112 participants of "Action to Reduce Maternal Mortality in
Africa: A Regional Consultation on Unsafe Abortion," which took
place March 5 7, 2003, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, represent a cross
section of African Ministers of Health, parliamentarians, directors
of health services, heads of reproductive-health units, heads of
academic institutions, youth activists, national and regional
women's groups, national networks engaged in promoting women's
health, nongovernmental organisations, religious organisations,
professional organisations such as obstetrician-gynaecologists and
nurse-midwives, lawyers, sociologists and media practitioners.
During the three-day consultation, we reviewed numerous dimensions
of the public-health challenge of unsafe abortion, including the
sociocultural, legal and policy context in which it occurs.
Recognising that abortion has always occurred and will continue to
occur in all cultures, we focused on the need to make it safe in
order to reduce related deaths and injuries of women. We examined
laws, policies and international commitments influencing access to
safe abortion in Africa; health-care providers' and public and
private health systems' role in meeting women's needs for safe
abortion; and strategies for creating an enabling environment that
supports women's right to safe abortion and related services.
Based on our own experiences and on presentations and discussions
during the consultation, we note with alarm that maternal mortality
rates remain unacceptably high and that unsafe abortion accounts
for an average of 12 percent of maternal deaths on the African
continent. At the national level, experts estimate that unsafe
abortion contributes in the range of 10-50 percent of maternal
deaths in African countries. Of the 68,000 deaths from
complications of unsafe abortion worldwide, 30,000 or nearly half
are in sub-Saharan Africa.
In addition to the shocking number of African women whose lives are
lost each year, unsafe abortion causes thousands more women to
suffer serious illnesses and injuries and renders many infertile.
These deaths and injuries are preventable, since safe and effective
technologies for contraception, pregnancy termination and
postabortion care are available but underutilized. We also know
that deaths and injuries from unsafe abortion disproportionately
affect adolescents, poor and other marginalised groups of women,
depriving Africa of a valuable human resource.
We recognise that, worldwide, restrictive abortion laws and lack of
safe abortion services are the major factors contributing to the
disproportionately high mortality of women from unsafe abortion.
Most African countries operate under archaic laws related to
abortion that were imposed by former colonial powers and have long
since been changed in those countries. In most countries where
abortion laws are liberalised, there are almost no deaths from
unsafe abortions.
We note that legislation in most African countries legally permits
abortion in limited circumstances such as in cases of rape, incest
or to save a woman's life but that the majority of women and
health-care providers remain uninformed of their legal rights and
obligations. We further recognise that many of the root causes of
unsafe abortion including African women's lack of access to
comprehensive reproductive-health information services to prevent
unwanted pregnancy, and lack of decision-making power related to
sex and reproduction are the same as those underlying the HIV/AIDS
pandemic.
We note also that all African countries have signed the Programme
of Action of the International Conference on Population and
Development, the Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference
on Women and other international agreements, compliance with which
requires addressing the public-health problem of unsafe abortion,
including by making safe abortion available to the full extent of
local law.
We stress that unsafe abortion has significant economic
implications, including the enormous costs to African health
systems associated with managing its complications. Until women can
make their own reproductive choices safely, poverty alleviation and
economic development cannot be achieved. Policies of Northern
governments and international financial institutions such as
health-sector reform, debt restructuring and structural adjustment
severely constrain health and social spending by African
governments and require revisiting.
Commitments and Recommendations
Thus, we the participants commit ourselves to:
- Formulate specific strategies to educate and engage all
stakeholders in advocacy to reduce the incidence and impact of
unsafe abortion;
- Work more effectively within existing legislation and health
systems to ensure that high-quality, comprehensive
reproductive-health care is universally available, with special
attention to reaching and responding to the needs of especially
vulnerable populations.
We the participants call on African governments to:
- Include specific and increased funding for reproductive health
and to address unsafe abortion in national and health system
budgets;
- Advocate for specific attention to reproductive health and unsafe
abortion in programs to achieve the Millennium Development Goals,
notably with regard to objectives specified in Goal 5, "Improve
Maternal Health;"
- Initiate reviews of existing, and in many cases outdated, laws
criminalising abortion, in line with specific commitments under
international agreements.
Additionally, we the participants call on multilateral and
bilateral donor agencies, headquarters and regional country offices
of international technical support agencies, and the global
community to:
- Direct more resources to preventing unsafe abortion and to making
safe legal abortion available to the full extent of the law;
- Provide the necessary leadership in addressing issues of unsafe
abortion especially in the dissemination and implementation of
technical and policy guidance for safe abortion in Africa.
Finally, we the participants vehemently oppose the Global Gag Rule
that was reinstituted in January 2001 by U.S. President George W.
Bush and which clearly impedes efforts to reduce unsafe abortion.
We call on African governments and the global community to be
accountable to their citizens and other stakeholders by opposing
it.
In conclusion, participants in the "Action to Reduce Maternal
Mortality in Africa" consultation reaffirm our commitment to doing
whatever is within our power at the national and regional levels to
halt the needless deaths and injuries of African women and girls
from unsafe abortion. We do this not only in the interest of the
girls, women, families and communities affected by unsafe abortion
today, but also for Africa's future.
Action to reduce maternal mortality in Africa
Another apartheid on our door steps
By Rosemary Okello
http://www.genderlinks.org
The fact that women in the industrialized world who seek an
abortion face almost no risk to their health, while women in
Africa face death or are maimed for life, is one of the greatest
health tragedies in the world today.
"There is no greater apartheid in the world than what is being
experienced in the field of reproductive health," said Prof Fred
Sai, consultant chair and Presidential Advisor on Reproductive
Health and HIV/ AIDS, Ghana, in his keynote speech to the
regional consultation on unsafe abortion.
The fact that by the end of the March 5-7 consultation, 280 women
would have died from unsafe abortion complications calls for each
individual to take action no matter how small, Sai said. "Nobody
is too small to fight for women's right and all of us have a
role."
The current scenario in Africa is one where non- governmental
organizations and community health providers are at the
forefront of service delivery in countries where abortion laws
are restrictive, while the governments promote post abortion
care.
The key issue for activists pushing for unrestrictive abortion
laws and better access to reproductive health care for all is how
to close the gap and at what cost.
There is a need to move beyond the "rhetoric and offer women
abortion care and ensure that there is access to services," said
Prof. O.A. Ladipo, President of the Association for Family
Planning and Reproductive Health, Nigeria.
But this cannot be achieved unless there is political will and
involvement among governments, policy makers, service providers
and everyone in society, experts say. Therefore the question of
abortion needs to be placed in the context of women's overall
access to health care and their status in the society, experts
add.
Action to reduce maternal mortality in Africa
A window of opportunity
By Rosemary Okello
"Can African women count on us?"
This question summed up the call for action which emanated Friday
from the first ever Regional Consultation on Unsafe Abortion held
in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. For many participants to the March 5-7
meeting, the sharing of experiences and the learning from one
another has made them more determined than ever to address the
needless loss of women's lives from unsafe abortion.
"One of the key targets is the community, because abortion is a
very emotive subject that is normally looked at from a socialcultural
point of view. Life is normally structured around
communal roles and responsibility in Africa," said Amb. Dr. Eunice
Brookman-Amissah, Ipas Vice-President for Africa.
The Consultation agreed that using the right language and targeting
key stakeholders can help shift attitudes about abortion on the
continent.
Prof. Oladapo Ladipo, President, Association for Family and
Reproductive Health, Nigeria said that as leaders and activists on
unsafe abortion, the participants have a critical role to play in
mounting a campaign that is able to achieve the goal of saving
many women who are dying. " We have to use everything at our
disposal, including sharing the lessons learnt during the meeting,"
Ladipo said.
He said that for the first time, stakeholders in the region were
able to go behind the statistics and bring out the magnitude of the
problem as it presents itself in the various countries of Africa.
"Advocating for the liberalization of abortion laws or using the
same laws to campaign for access to services is one of the ways
forward," Ladipo said. Also, he added, advocacy is key, especially
when dealing with religious leaders, traditionalists, politicians,
and the women's groups which normally lack information on unsafe
abortion.
"In African countries, there is no law that absolutely prohibits
abortion and it is the same medical people and the society that
have not been able to interpret the law correctly. With this window
of opportunity, all stakeholders can do something for the African
woman.
"This does not mean that we are promoting abortion, because I am
yet to see a woman who enjoys terminating a pregnancy, unless it is
due to some reason," Ladipo continued.
Echoing the same sentiment, Uche Ekenna, Ipas Acting Regional
Director for Africa, added that: "more importantly would be for the
providers and health personnel to know what is the limitation of
the law, and to be able to provide the services according to the
limit of the law."
But he warns that, even in countries where the law has been
liberalized, many women still cannot access the reproductive health
services, partly because of the lack of adequate resources.
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Date distributed (ymd): 030326
Region: Continent-Wide
Issue Areas: +political/rights+ +gender/women+
The Africa Action E-Journal is a free information service provided
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order to promote U.S. and international policies toward Africa
that advance economic, political and social justice and the full
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