Level of Compliance to Abortion Law in Nigeria (Term Paper Sample)

The rate of induced abortion worldwide can never be accurate because reliable data are only available in a few countries. Henshaw and others identified only 28 countries with complete data on abortion. In a comprehensive review of data on abortion by them, they further deduced that one out of every four pregnancies worldwide is voluntarily terminated, attesting to the enormity of the global abortion problem.[S K Henshaw, and others, ‘The Incidence of Abortion Worldwide’ (1999)24 International Family Planning Perspectives 30 HYPERLINK "https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/25s3099.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwj_xpf95PvwAhUTmVwKHYHgCBoQFjABegQIBhAC&usg=AOvVaw1ilR7ZtB_adLfD0orVDq22" https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/25s3099.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwj_xpf95PvwAhUTmVwKHYHgCBoQFjABegQIBhAC&usg=AOvVaw1ilR7ZtB_adLfD0orVDq22 Accessed 3 June 2021] [ibid] [ibid]
One in four pregnancies worldwide is voluntarily terminated. Approximately 20 million terminations are performed under unsafe conditions, mostly in developing countries with restrictive abortion laws like Nigeria. Adinma and others interviwed a total of 100 consecutive abortion seekers, to ascertain their knowledge and perception on the Nigerian abortion law. The majority of 55 percent of the respondents were students. Most of them (97 percent) had at least secondary education and the majority (62.0 percent) were within the 20- 24 years age range. Only 31 percent of the women interviewed were aware of the Nigerian abortion law. While 16 percent perceived the law as being restrictive, 2 percent opined that it was alright, one percent perceived it as very restrictive and 12 percent had no opinion on the abortion law.[E D Adinma and others, ‘Knowledge and Perception of the Nigerian Abortion Law By Abortion Seekers in South- Eastern Nigeria’ (2011) 31 Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology 763 HYPERLINK "https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mathew-Okoh/publication/51800843_Knowledge_and_perception_of_the_Nigerian_abortion_Law_by_abortion_seekers_in_South-Eastern_Nigeria/links/0046352cc3ffc21133000000/Knowledge-and-perception-of-the-Nigerian-abortion-Law-by-abortion-seekers-in-South-Eastern-Nigeria.pdf" https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mathew-Okoh/publication/51800843_Knowledge_and_perception_of_the_Nigerian_abortion_Law_by_abortion_seekers_in_South-Eastern_Nigeria/links/0046352cc3ffc21133000000/Knowledge-and-perception-of-the-Nigerian-abortion-Law-by-abortion-seekers-in-South-Eastern-Nigeria.pdf accessed 3 June 2021] [(n 4)]
According to Henshaw, each year more than 4.2 million women undergo unsafe abortion and an estimated 38,000 of them die from the experience, leaving countless others with severe morbidities. The Centre for Human Development, Ile-Ife in collaboration with UNICEF reported that a larger percentage, more than half of women in Nigeria have fallen victims of unwanted pregnancy at the age of 20 and in some part of the country, it is high as 80 percent. Out of this number, 21-28 percent have given birth between the ages of 15 and 17 years while 40 percent are likely to be mothers by the age of 18 years.[S K Henshaw, ‘ Induced Abortion: A World Review’ (1990) 22 Family Planning Perspectives 76] [United Nations Children’s Fund originally known as the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, created by the United Nations General Assembly on 11 December 1946, to provide emergency food and health care to children and mothers in countries that had been devastated by world war II HYPERLINK "https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/25s3099.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwj_xpf95PvwAhUTmVwKHYHgCBoQFjABegQIBhAC&usg=AOvVaw1ilR7ZtB_adLfD0orVDq22" www.un.org/en/ccoi/unicef-united-nations-childrens-fund#:~:text=The%20United%20Nations%Children’s%20Fund,devastated%20by%20World%20War%2011. Accessed 30 May 2021]
A large number of the adolescents who experienced unintended pregnancy resort to abortion to save them from stigmatization. Abortion or termination of unwanted pregnancy and its complications among youths is due to different reasons such as; poverty, illiteracy to inability on the part of the abortion service provider among others. In Nigeria, approximately 760,000 abortions occur annually and 60 percent of these are performed by non- medical personnel. Abortion mortality statistics are not readily available in Nigeria, but available reports in the country show that abortion seekers are mainly young, unmarried students below the age of 24 years.[Aziken and others, ‘Knowledge and Perception of Emergency Contraception Among Female Nigerian Undergraduates’ (2003) 29 International Family Planning Perspectives 84 HYPERLINK "https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/article_files/2908403.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiLk9jx5fvwAhXVRkEAHW-hCjYQFjABegQIBhAC&usg=AOvVaw1JNG1msDP42PdNsKEqQ9kW" https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/article_files/2908403.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiLk9jx5fvwAhXVRkEAHW-hCjYQFjABegQIBhAC&usg=AOvVaw1JNG1msDP42PdNsKEqQ9kW Accessed 3 June 2021] [A Bankole and others, ‘ Unwanted Pregnancy and Induced Abortion in Nigeria: Causes and Consequences’ (2006) 32 International Family Planning Perspectives 175] [B A Oye- Adeniran and others, ‘ Charactersitics of Abortion Care Seekers in South- Western Nigeria’ (2004)8 African Journal of Reproductive Health 81]
Recall that Nigerian law prohibits abortion in all circumstances except to save the life of the mother, the relevant section being section 297 of the Criminal code Act applicable to the southern states in Nigeria. A similar provision also exists in section 232 of the Penal code, applicable to the northern states. Despite the existence of these laws, abortion is still rampant in the country, with perpetrators patronizing private clinics, chemists and quacks to perform the act, rendering the abortion laws ineffective.[Cap C 39 LFN 2004] [Cap 53 LFN 2004]
A law is effective if it is validated by the people through their compliance with it. However, not everyone is aware of the Nigerian abortion law. The knowledge of the provisions of the law on abortion in Nigeria is important, as it will influence abortion practices among health care providers and furthermore, affect the health seeking behavior of women with an unwanted pregnancy. The law on abortion in Nigeria is by its nature restrictive and Adinma holds the opinion that without doubts the majority, if not all, of all the abortion seekers in their research study are unlikely to have met the conditions for legal termination of pregnancy in Nigeria. The implication of this is that both the provider and the abortion seeker run the risk of breaking the law with its untoward repercussion of culpable felony.[E D Adinma and others (n 4)] [ibid]
Adinma and others research study further reveals that knowledge of the law is not necessarily related to the educational status of the women, nor does it influence the number of terminations of pregnancy. Although, the number of women in this study (36.4 percent) with tertiary educational qualifications, who claimed to be aware of the abortion law were higher than those with secondary educational qualifications (28.1 percent), the difference was not significant. Also, the decreasing knowledge with educational level seems to have altered, when considering that two out of three women with a primary educational qualification had knowledge of the existence of the abortion law. Similary, the number of terminations of pregnancy did not seem to be related in any regular pattern with the respondents’ knowledge of the existence of the abortion law.[E D Adinma and others ( n 4)]
Thus according to Adinma and others; ‘it is clear therefore that the knowledge, or not, of the provisions of the law on abortion in the country has no influence on the woman’s demand for abortion services.’ This situation may have been strengthened by the fact that rarely anyone has been prosecuted in Nigeria for breaking the abortion law. Thus, Adinma and others remarks that ‘the law may therefore be considered to be inconsequential’. It may even be serving an unsalutary purpose of promoting clandestine unsafe abortions, with the attendant high maternal mortality and morbidity, more likely to occur among the poor and low class women.[ibid] [A Faúndes and J S Barzelatto, Consequences of Unsafe Abortion: The Human Drama of Abortion (Vanderbilt University Press 2006)]
Level of Compliance in Northern and Southern States
Nigeria is one of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa where maternal mortality has remained a problem. The country’s progress towards cutting the numbers of maternal death has been largely insufficient. Studies have shown that the levels of maternal mortality vary within the country. There are states and health facilities that have higher level of maternal mortality compared to the national average. For instance, some northern states like Kano in 2008 had a maternal mortality ratio of 1,600 deaths per 100,000 live births, while 1,049 deaths per 100, 000 live births were reported in Zamfara state.[L Alkema and others, Global, Regional and National Levels and Trends in Maternal Mortality Between 1990 and 2015, With Scenario-based Projections to 2030: A Systematic Analysis by the UN Maternal Mortality Estimation Inter-agency Group (Lancet 2016) 387] [H Galadanci and others, ‘Programs and Policies for Reducing Maternal Mortality in Kano State Nigeria: A Re...