When parliamentarians in Benin, West Africa, met last year to debate the possibility of legalizing abortion, they heard a shocking testimony from the country’s Minister for Social Affairs, Véronique Tognifode, about things she saw during the years she worked as a gynecologist. .
Tognifode reported that she and her peers fought to save the lives of women who had tried to terminate pregnancies by ingesting dubious pills or bleach, inserting sharp objects into the body, or having illegal abortions with unskilled people known locally as “mechanics”.
Mortality resulting from clandestine abortions was unacceptably high, said the minister: one in five maternal deaths in Benin was the result of this type of abortion, according to the government – more than double the average on the African continent, which is the most dangerous region in the world. world to terminate a pregnancy.
“Girls and young women get abortions one way or another, and the methods they employ are unthinkable,” said Tognifode, one of three gynecologists who hold senior posts in Benin’s government. “We cannot accept what we see in hospitals.”
A year after that testimony, Benin, a country of 12 million inhabitants, mostly Christians and Muslims, became one of the few African countries where there is wide access to abortion.
In October 2021, Beninese legislators approved the decriminalization of abortion under most circumstances, authorizing its performance when the pregnancy is likely to cause “material, educational, professional or moral suffering” to the woman. Until then, abortion was only allowed in cases of rape, incest, fetal abnormalities or when the pregnancy put the woman’s life at risk.
Unlike several Latin American countries, where abortion was only recently authorized in response to grassroots feminist movements, the law in Benin was changed after years of quiet lobbying by doctors and activists. According to politicians, the measure also had the support of the president.
A year after the law was enacted, some clinics have received more women seeking abortions, but fewer patients needing treatment due to botched abortions.
Benin’s initiative to expand the right to abortion followed the opposite course to that of the United States, where states have been tightening restrictions and the Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade Act of 1973, which legalized abortion nationwide.
It also runs counter to most of Africa. In sub-Saharan Africa, nine out of ten women still live in countries with laws that restrict abortion. The information is from the Guttmacher Institute, a non-profit organization that works with reproductive health.
Benin is one of the few countries on the continent where abortion is allowed in most cases. The others are Cape Verde, Mozambique, South Africa and Tunisia.
The issue is being debated in other countries. In June, Liberian lawmakers discussed a bill that would legalize abortion in most circumstances, but the outcome is still uncertain. Meanwhile, the government of Sierra Leone, which has one of the world’s highest maternal mortality rates, has pledged to decriminalize abortion.
Abortion rights advocates in Africa fear that the repeal of Roe v. Wade could undermine liberalization on his continent. “Benin today recognizes something that the US denies, but it is impossible to ignore the impact of the end of Roe v Wade on Africa,” said Bilguissou Baldé, director for French-speaking Africa at the NGO Ipas, which promotes abortion rights.
Even so, many women in Benin now feel freer to seek the procedure, health professionals said. Authorities have not released official figures on the abortion rate.
“Women directly tell us ‘I want to have an abortion,'” said Serge Kitihoun, director of medical services for the Beninese branch of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. “A few years ago, that would have been unthinkable.”
The parliamentary vote on the Beninese bill came to crown a lobbying effort carried out for years by defenders of the right to abortion. Health minister and gynecologist and obstetrician Benjamin Hounkpatin allegedly told activists in 2018 that he was interested in facilitating access to abortion, according to Ipas’ Baldé.
Twice last year, lawmakers gathered in a hotel on the outskirts of Cotonou and heard presentations by Tognifode, the Minister for Social Affairs, and other gynecologists and nurses who spoke of the consequences of clandestine abortions.
Hundreds of women in Benin become infertile every year and at least 200 die as a result of botched abortions – and, according to Tognifode, the real numbers could be two or three times higher. Studies reveal that restricting access to abortion has little impact on the number of women seeking the procedure. Instead, she puts women’s lives at risk.
“How many more times will we have to assist women with the intestine coming out of the uterus?”, said Tognifode.
One of the lawmakers, Orden Alladatin, said in an interview that such “atrocious” footage was shown to lawmakers that he was persuaded to vote for the bill.
Bishops of the Catholic Church – about a quarter of the population are Catholics – tried to oppose the bill, but were only informed about the measure on the eve of the vote, according to the secretary general of the national conference of bishops, Eric Okpeitcha. “We tried to talk to parliamentarians to ask them to vote against it, but it was too late.”
“It’s not part of our culture,” Okpeitcha said, referring to abortion. She argued that the new law’s criteria are too vague and permissive. “Material suffering – who can define what it is?”
No referendums or polls were held to gauge public opinion. Some lawmakers, including the president of the National Assembly, strongly opposed the measure.
Kitihoun of Planned Parenthood said he lobbied lawmakers until the last minute, even following some of them into the bathroom of the National Assembly building before the final vote.
After hours of debate, the Assembly unanimously approved the law. Opposing legislators had either left the hall or claimed to have changed their minds. The vote count was not released.
President Patrice Talon, 64, a businessman who made his fortune in the cotton industry, personally lobbied for the law, according to Tognifode and Hounkpatin. Many saw his support as being consistent with his record of passing measures to increase women’s rights: increasing sentences for sexual assault offenders, criminalizing sexual contact between college professors and their students, allowing women to give their children their last name. .
But critics said lawmakers had little choice but to go along with the president, who was elected in 2016 and who analysts say has grown increasingly autocratic since then, jailing political opponents and stifling press freedom.
Whether Beninese society is prepared for legal abortion is another question. In recent decades the birth rate in the country has dropped to 4.7 births per woman, but Benin is still religiously conservative. About half of the population is Christian, of various denominations, and a quarter is Muslim.
Simon Séto, a surgeon and gynecologist in Abomey-Calavi, near Cotonou, commented that he has seen enough hypocrisy surrounding abortion. “The priest preaches as if he doesn’t see the reality,” he said, “but when his daughter or his wife needs us, he knows very well how to find us.”
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