ONE effective way to ensure the sustainability of the life planning education (LPE) programme and the highest level of political and stakeholder commitment to firmly establishing the LPE in the state’s government governance processes is to include it in the proposed law to prevent unsafe abortions.
Executive Director of PLAN Health Advocacy and Development Foundation (PLAN Foundation), Mr Obatunde Oladapo, made this disclosure at the opening of a 3-day workshop on the review of abortion law for the development of a state policy on the prevention of unsafe abortion and the establishment of a state response team on the prevention of unsafe abortion in Ogbomoso.
A draft of the Oyo State Safe Termination of Pregnancy (Regulation and Control) bill was also expected to be developed at the workshop supported by the Eliminating Multiple Barriers to Sexual and Reproductive Health Services among Young Girls and Women with Disabilities in Oyo State, Nigeria (EMBASSY) Project.
Mr Oladapo said incorporating LPE into the law is important because most of the existing laws and guidelines that focus on safe termination of pregnancy were usually to the exclusion of young persons, especially in-school youths.
According to him, its incorporation to ensure provisions to address the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) needs of young girls to prevent unplanned abortion is a strategy that is needed to prevent unsafe abortion.
“There is copious evidence that highlights the correlation between high rates of unplanned pregnancy, lack of supportive systems for young girls who have unplanned pregnancies, and high rates of unsafe abortions.
“At PLAN Foundation, we believe that access to the vital information and services that address the vulnerability of young girls to unprotected sex, unplanned pregnancy, and unsafe abortion are part of their SRH rights.
“LPE is one of the major strategies for the provision of adolescent reproductive health education. It is also a gateway for facilitating access to comprehensive SRH services. Prevention of unsafe abortion is not confined to safe termination of pregnancy but also prevention of unplanned pregnancy.”
The director of Oyo State’s Mediation Centre of the Ministry of Justice, Mrs. Modupe Awosemusi, in her presentations, stated that so many lapses and gaps exist in Nigeria’s abortion law that prevent teenagers, adolescents, and women from running afoul of it when there is an unwanted pregnancy.
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She declared that a robust policy to prevent unwanted pregnancies needs to be developed, with inputs from every stakeholder, and in case an unwanted pregnancy happens, prevent unsafe abortion.
“Unless we want to deceive ourselves, a lot of our young ones are sexually active, and they engage in unsafe abortion. So, we need to bring up the issue of contraceptives to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
“We need to educate them; we need to do a lot of advocacy to schools, religious institutions, and different communities. So, unless we can achieve all this, we may not be able to put the policies into use. We need to carry everybody along.”
Mr Ayansiji Ganiyu, also one of the workshop facilitators, stated that unsafe abortion is a significant public health concern and a leading cause of maternal mortality and morbidity, making access to SRH services critical for preventing unsafe abortion.
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