The West Point Women for Health and Development Organization (WPWHDO) has sensitized young women and girls about unsafe abortion and the harmful practices of female genital mutilation (FGM) in the country.
Unsafe abortion is a major contributor to Liberia’s “very high rate of maternal mortality,” according to a 2020 report by the World Health Organization. It was one of just eight African countries that ranked that high.
The group’s Executive Director, Madam Nelly S. Cooper, thought it expedient to enlighten young women and teenagers about the effects of unsafe abortion and FGM at the celebration of this year’s International Day for the Girl Child held in West Point, the country’s largest slum community.
The day, which is celebrated every October 11, focuses on the need to address the challenges girls face and to promote girls’ empowerment and the fulfillment of their human rights.
However, Cooper explained that the organization is creating awareness to inform girls and women to have access to quality health services instead of going to people who are not professionals.
According to International Campaign for Women’s Right to Safe Abortion, in Liberia abortion is illegal except in cases of rape, incest, fetal abnormality or risk to the woman’s physical or mental health. Two physicians must certify medical exceptions and evidence of rape and incest must be provided to the health minister, a county attorney or police. It is punishable up to five years in prison. The law’s backers say that means safe abortion is available only to women with money to pay.
Liberia’s new public health law was passed by the House of Representatives in 2022. It is currently being debated by the Senate, where the government needs the support of two-thirds of senators for it to be passed. The bill also contains a range of other public health elements. It would make abortion legal up to 18 weeks of pregnancy if it is done by a doctor. The original version of the bill had made it 24 weeks. Abortion law reform may be dropped from the bill altogether in order to ensure the rest passes.
The study revealed that the Ministry of Health worked with health law experts in the US and UK to draft the law after a major survey, released in April, found unsafe abortions caused shocking outcomes for young women and the health system. More than half of all pregnancies in Liberia in 2021 were unintended – 35% (more than 38,000) ended in abortion. More than six in every ten women who had an abortion had moderate to severe complications. One in ten abortions resulted in death or “near misses”. Activists say the number is likely far higher.
“So, this is why we are sensitizing women and girls about unsafe abortion to have access to quality health services instead of going to people who are not professionals, especially where so many abortions are going on in the country that are not safe,” she noted.
At the same time, Cooper said in a special interview with a journalist that no matter what law the government introduces or tries to bring into the country, abortion will not stop.
“I have gone through an abortion. When you’re stuck with a pregnancy, it is not easy to get out of it,” she said. “I know how one can feel with an unwanted pregnancy that you are not prepared to have, so these are things that we are trying to sensitize our girls and women to by advocating for safe abortion rights.”
According to her, “if our girls and women have a particular place where they can go and have a safe abortion, they will be okay! But where people die and leave children behind, that’s what we don’t support as an organization.”