Abortion in Uganda

Abortion in Uganda is a widespread problem because of complications from the procedure. It is not illegal, but the common interpretation of this law is that abortion is only sanctioned when necessary to save the mother's life.^[1] Dr. Charles Kiggundu, speaking to the Ministry of Health in February 2014 said, "Unsafe abortion continues to kill many women and yet we know it is preventable." He then said that abortion is the second leading cause of maternal deaths in Uganda. Kiggundu continued by stating that half of the two million pregnancies per year in Uganda are unwanted and about 400,000 are aborted, with 90,000 of them resulting in severe complications.^[2] Another source puts the number of complications as high as 148,500.^[3] Contraception is not commonly used, leading to "Uganda’s unmet need for family planning [which] is the second highest in the world after Samoa, according to the United Nations." One in five pregnancies are terminated unsafely and one in four women die as a result.^[4]

Laws on women's sexual reproduction and abortion

Law on abortion in Uganda is unclear in that it provides for some exceptions while condemning the procedure in most cases. The Ugandan Constitution, in Article 22, item 2 states: "No person has the right to terminate the life of an unborn child except as may be authorised by law."^[5] However, what is authorized by law remains poorly understood.

The Penal Code of 1950, Article 141 on "Attempts to procure abortion" states:

Any person who, with intent to procure the miscarriage of a woman whether she is or is not with child, unlawfully administers to her or causes her to take any poison or other noxious thing, or uses any force of any kind, or uses any other means, commits a felony and is liable to imprisonment for fourteen years.^[6]

Article 142 lays out a punishment of seven years for an attempt to procure a miscarriage.

Nonetheless, under other provisions of the Penal Code an abortion may be performed to save the life of a pregnant woman. Section 217 of the Code provides that a person is not criminally responsible for performing in good faith and with reasonable care and skill a surgical operation upon an unborn child for the preservation of the mother’s life if the performance of the operation is reasonable, having regard to the patient’s state at the time and to all the circumstances of the case. In addition, Section 205 of the Code provides that no person shall be guilty of the offence of causing by willful act a child to die before it has an independent existence from its mother if the act was carried out in good faith for the purpose of preserving the mother’s life.

Moreover, Uganda, like a number of Commonwealth countries, whose legal systems are based the English common law, follows the holding of the 1938 English Rex v. Bourne decision in determining whether an abortion performed for health reasons is lawful. In the Bourne decision, a physician was acquitted of the offence of performing an abortion in the case of a woman who had been raped. The court ruled that the abortion was lawful because it had been performed to prevent the woman from becoming “a physical and mental wreck”, thus setting a precedent for future abortion cases performed on the grounds of preserving the pregnant woman’s physical and mental health. The liberalization and legality of abortion in Uganda has been complicated by the use of rape as a weapon of war and terror by rebel groups in the region."^[7]

The grounds on which abortion is permitted: An abortion is permitted to save a woman's life, the preserve the physical health of the woman, and to preserve the mental health of the woman. However, an abortion is no permitted in terms of rape or incest, fetal impairment, economic or social reasons, or just simply by request. A legal abortion has to be done by a licensed and registered physician, and the law does not now need the approval of any kind of council or committee, only the consent of two physicians before the abortion can take place.^[8]

The government's part

In 1988, the government launched a comprehensive program in Uganda because there was a large population growth rate. In Uganda, they had a very high fertility rate of 7.1 children for each woman from 1995-2000, and the growth rate was 2.8 percent. This rapid population growth took a negative effect on per capita incomes and social services hence the comprehensive government program. The program adopted the National Population Policy for Sustainable Development in 1995, and its major goal was to increase the contraceptive rate from 5 percent to 20 percent by 2000. The services for birth control in Uganda are now accessible at clinics and are operated by the Family Planning Association of Uganda. Contraceptives like condoms helped to reduce the rate of HIV/AIDS in Uganda, but there are still a significant number of unwanted pregnancies leading to abortion.^[9]

The government's view on the fertility level in Uganda is high, while the governments intervention concerning the fertility level is lower. There was direct support provided in the governments policy on contraceptive use, and the percentage of woman that are currently married using contraception is from the age of 15 to 49 since 1995 is 8 percent. The total fertility rate from 1995 to 2000 is 7.1, and the age specific fertility rate for each 1,000 women of the age 15 to 19 from 1995 to 2000 is 180. the government has shown a lot of concern for the morbidity and mortality resulting from induced abortion, but there has been a number of complications in childbearing and child birth. In Uganda, the female life expectancy at birth from 1995 to 2000 was 40.4 percent.^[10]

Movements

Movements such as Pro-Life Uganda (Pro-Life Uganda) and Pro-Choice Uganda (Pro Abortion) fight for their belief that either a woman has the righ to choose what happens to her and her baby (Pro-Choice Uganda), or the life is sacred and everyone deserves to live (Pro-Life Uganda).^[11] There was a movement that took place that involved the Pro-Life organization, Christian founded anti-abortion that advocates against abortion. This group was joined by 100 delegates from the U.S., United Kingdom, Uganda and Spain in a three-day workshop to help the young women of Uganda understand the preciousness of life, and to counsel the young women against the practice of abortion.^[12]

References