Most of the other girls at the hostel had done it at least once. Some had aborted pregnancies a couple of times and they urged 26-year-old Josephine* on: Why keep the baby and risk facing the wrath of strict Catholic parents, the shame of having sex out of wedlock, and a child to stress and inconvenience her when she was not ready.
“Deciding to abort and finding a doctor to do it was the easy part. What nobody told me is that my abortion would not follow the usual script,” Josephine sighs.
If what she had seen happen with her friends was the standard, she would go to the clinic, have her womb cleaned out, and a few minutes later, the girls would spruce up and leave for another night of wild abandon.
There would be alcohol, maybe some sex followed by the morning-after pill, and if by chance anyone got pregnant, there would be an abortion to take care of that little inconvenience.
Failed abortion
Abortion is a thorny issue that refuses to go away, even in countries like the US where women can have abortion on demand up until 24 weeks into the pregnancy. Closer home, Google Zeitgeist awakened the abortion debate when it revealed that while abortion is illegal except when recommended for health reasons, many Kenyans were searching online for tips on how to abort.
Dr John Ong’ech, the head of obstetrics and gynaecology at the Kenyatta National Hospital, argues that lost in the heat of the emotional debate is usually the bigger picture: that women are having unprotected sex with abandon and seeking abortion as a quick fix.
“You cannot be in a relationship without sex. I don’t know anyone who is waiting for marriage. The important thing is that your parents keep thinking that you are, and an untimely pregnancy would shatter the illusion as well as interfere with other life plans,” Josephine, a banker, says.
Her first abortion did not go as planned. At the clinic, she was told to swallow pills that would induce an abortion and go home to wait for the two-month-old pregnancy to be expelled in the form of her menses.
She bled for a couple of days, but the pills did not work. She was still pregnant. She was given another dose, which also did not work. Four months later, (she was now about six months along), she was still pregnant and decided to see a different doctor, who gave her more pills and an injection and assured her that it would not fail.
The medication was supposed to cut up the foetus so that it came out as blood, but what she saw in the lodging she had booked with her boyfriend — as they waited for the expulsion — remains etched in her mind.
“At around midnight, I had excruciating pain, but instead of bleeding out a cut up foetus, I gave birth to a green baby. As I held the foetus, it started crying and fearing that the attendant would hear the cries, I threw it on the bed and together with my boyfriend we smothered it with a pillow and sat on it. We then put it in a plastic bag and threw it in a dustbin on our way out. It all happened too fast for me and I’m not sure whether I felt relief or dismay after having killed a baby.
“I wish I had not done it. I have never been more ashamed and guilty in my life. I think facing my parents would have been easier, and the sight of the green foetus is a memory that I can never forget. Even alcohol is not enough to numb the pain I feel,” says Josephine, who got drunk to try and forget the incident.
A lot has been said about the explosion of unprotected sex owing to booming sales of emergency contraceptive pills especially on weekends and during holidays. The 2009 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS) estimated that 17 per cent of women had unwanted pregnancies. These unplanned pregnancies likely translate into abortions.
A 2002 study by Ipas, a global reproductive health organisation, in collaboration with other health organisations found that about 300,000 women have spontaneous (miscarriage) and induced abortions in Kenya every year.
At Kenyatta National Hospital, dozens of women are treated for post-abortion complications, but this does not include the number of those who abort successfully and without complications.
Wrong focus will hinder solutions
Rhoda*, 33, aborted in what she calls a fast and easy procedure because a baby would have hindered her career success. Things took a downward turn when she was rushed to hospital a day later with sharp pains.
By FELISTA WANGARI AND JOAN THATIAH
0 comments:
Post a Comment