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JOHANNESBURG, South Africa: Deaths from back street abortions have dropped by 91 percent in the decade since South Africa became one of the few African countries to legalize abortion, health care workers said.

Speaking on International Women’s Day at a conference, Elizabeth Maguire, president of Ipas, an U.S.-based reproductive rights organization, hailed the progress South Africa has made in making safe abortions accessible to more women. But health care workers said abortion still carried a stigma, and an anti-abortion group said the anniversary was no cause for celebration.

“South Africa stands as a great success story and clearly leads the region in advancing women’s reproductive health and rights,” she said Thursday.

South African legislation, passed in 1996, allows unrestricted abortions until the 12th week of pregnancy. Nearly 530,000 women had abortions between 1997 and 2006, according to figures provided by Ipas South Africa with 11 percent being provided to girls under 18 years old.

The risk of death from unsafe abortions is higher in Africa than in any other region with about 4.2 million unsafe operations being performed and 30,000 related deaths a year, said Maguire.
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“The greatest tragedy is that the deaths and injuries from unsafe abortions are largely preventable. This has been shown very dramatically in South Africa,” she said.

Maguire said a number of African countries are introducing abortion law reform. Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Ethiopia, Guinea, Mali, Swaziland and Togo have enacted additional conditions under which abortion is legal. Mozambique is also considering liberalizing its abortion laws, she said.

But many health workers in South Africa spoke of those who performed operations being shunned by their communities or colleagues.

“It is traumatizing, especially when you see patients coming back for repeat abortions,” said nursing sister Vuyisile Makhatini. “But we do get counseling and you get used to it. I feel I must assist all those women who come for help.”

Maguire said anti-abortion forces in the United States were helping fuel a “well-organized and financed” opposition to abortion in Africa. But opposition also was rooted in traditional culture on the continent.

While safe abortions have been made accessible to more women, speakers at the conference said the practice was still not seen as totally socially acceptable, especially in more rural conservative communities.

“It is still seen as a taboo. This is often why women come for terminations late in their pregnancies,” said Makhatini.

Of the abortions performed in South Africa, 24 percent were provided to women in the second trimester.

Makhatini said women wanting abortions cited socio-economic reasons, breakdowns in relationships, unemployment and wanting to continue studies.

Professor Charles Ngwenya, head of the Department of Constitutional Law at the University of the Free State, emphasized that abortion should be seen as a last resort and that there was a need for greater contraception programs to be put in place.

“We need to celebrate that more women have access to abortions and that we have been able to reduce maternal deaths. But we can’t celebrate if the number increases for a long time. Abortion must not be the only choice for women,” he said.

However, John Smyth, spokesman for the anti-abortion organization Doctors For Life, said a decade of abortion in South Africa was no cause for celebration. He said there was concern that the law was not being followed properly and pregnant women were not being thoroughly counseled.

“The abortion figures are horrifying and there are many wounded and hurting women who wish they hadn’t had an abortion,” he said.

The organization is assisting 21-year-old Crystal Osler who was subjected to an illegal abortion at 28 weeks in 2004 while in her last year of school. Osler and her parents are suing the school, accused of arranging the abortion behind her parents back, and the clinic where the abortion took place. The case is expected to be heard in the Durban High Court next month.

this article first appeared on the international herald tribune website