28 September 2024: Access to safe abortion is a fundamental human right and essential for women’s empowerment, equality and dignity. While abortion is a quick and safe medical procedure, women continue to die in large numbers because of unsafe practices.

To mark International Safe Abortion Day, celebrated annually on 28th September, members of the Safe Abortion Alliance of Southern Africa (SAASA) hosted a dialogue on what we need to do to improve women’s access to safe abortion as prescribed by the laws in Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) countries.

Africa is guided by the Maputo Protocol (Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa) adopted by the African Union in 2003. It is the first treaty anywhere in the world to recognise abortion, under certain conditions, as a reproductive right of women.

Laws on abortion in SADC range from being legal on demand, as in South Africa and Mozambique, to complete criminalisation in Madagascar.  Panellists from five countries with different abortion laws and interpretations described the obstacles that persist for women when trying to access safe abortion within their laws.

Lynette Mudekunye, author of the Safe Abortion chapter of the upcoming Voice and Choice SADC Barometer, noted that “In every country in the world, women of all ages and socio-economic means will at some point decide that they are not able to carry a pregnancy to term for many different reasons.  Once a woman decides to have an abortion, she will find a way to do it”.

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