The Sunday News
Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
LAWS regulating abortion should be relaxed in order to give women a chance to make decisions concerning their health and bodies, experts have said.
The Termination of Pregnancy Act of 1977 makes abortion illegal except in the case of rape, incest or when the pregnancy is posing a serious threat to the mother.
Reads the Act; “Circumstances in which pregnancy may be terminated subject to this Act, a pregnancy may be terminated (a) where the continuation of the pregnancy so endangers the life of the woman concerned or so constitutes a serious threat of permanent impairment of her physical health that the termination of the pregnancy is necessary to ensure her life or physical health, as the case may be; or (b) where there is a serious risk that the child to be born will suffer from a physical or mental defect of such a nature that he will permanently be seriously handicapped; or (c) where there is a reasonable possibility that the foetus is conceived as a result of unlawful intercourse.”
However, this has been met with mixed feelings as more women are terminating pregnancies illegally with the statistics standing at close to 66 000 each year in Zimbabwe. Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health chairperson Dr Ruth Labode said the Act was now outdated and should be accommodative of the choices of women and their health.
“The issue at hand is that we have a law that says abortion is illegal only under specific conditions but even those legal abortions, women are failing to access them. There is a need to remove bottlenecks from the current laws that are actually prohibitive. We need to relook at these issues at hand,” she said.
Dr Labode said certain health conditions may also force a woman to have an abortion and they must be allowed to make that informed choice.
“Is it fair that a woman who is HIV-positive and feels like she may put her child at risk opts for an abortion, should we deny her that chance? Or one who has a serious diabetic condition and they get pregnant, chances of giving birth to a child with a disability are high. We need to look at the broader picture and scrutinise all areas concerned which can be included in the current law.
“If you have Thrombosis the formation of a blood clot inside a blood vessel, obstructing the flow of blood through the circulatory system and you get pregnant there is a chance that you can get blocked and you can die. So, if your doctor tells you that this is the situation you can then make a choice to terminate lawfully the pregnancy,” she added.
Dr Labode said it must also be put into law that these affected people get safe terminations for free at public institutions because it is actually treatment. A female legislator Jasmine Toffa (MDC-A proportional representative) said women should be afforded a chance to terminate unwanted pregnancies legally.
“Looking at the current law, it is very restrictive and there is a lot of red tape. Particularly in the case of rape and incest, the process you have to go through before you are granted that permission is very cumbersome to the extent that you end up giving birth to a child you had no intention of having before being raped,” she said.
She said the Government must know that abortions are real and taking place as many young women and girls are affected.
MP Toffa said studies that have been done have proven that in countries that are affording safe abortions such as South Africa, do not have an increase in illegal abortions because there is legislation that affords safe termination of the pregnancy and this has cut down the number of abortions in back-door clinics.
Director Family Health in the Ministry of Health and Child Care, Dr Bernard Madzima admitted that there were restrictive processes in the process leading to the termination of pregnancy.
“A woman has to prove that a rape occurred and the police have to do their investigations leading to prosecution and the magistrate issues a certificate to confirm that it was indeed a rape case,” he said.
He said in addition, two medical practitioners also have to examine the victim and agree that a termination can be performed.
“It’s a tedious process that sees women not accessing the abortion. It is there on paper but very restrictive,” he said.
