Restrictive Regulations Will Not Improve Sexual and Reproductive Health
- The laws on reproductive health need to focus on protecting the health and well-being of people who can get pregnant.
For as long as I can recall, almost everything I tried to learn about sexual and reproductive health has always been shrouded in mystery and silence or unnecessarily regulated. No one ever gave me a reasonable justification for this.
Many young people navigating their sexuality and sexual health seek answers from authority figures in their homes or schools. But unfortunately, those spaces are usually silent about what they need to know. Or worse, the answers they find are either not comprehensive enough or deliberately misleading.
The less we know about our bodies and sexual and reproductive health, the less informed the choices we might make. This lack of information can result in avoidable complications in our general health and well-being.
Unfortunately, many of the current conversations around sexual and reproductive health concerning women, trans-men, and some non-binary people focus on regulation. These conversations show a pattern of control and the limitation of the choices they can make about themselves.
When Donald Trump made one of his first proposed budget cuts as President of the USA on January 23, 2017, it was an executive order cutting off funding aid from the USA to foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs). These were mainly NGOs that included legal abortion information and services as part of their family planning outreach, even if the funds used for abortion awareness and advocacy were from their own pockets. This decision would later target not just family planning support aids. The USA withdrew funding from all global health aids if they promoted any form of awareness about abortion as a family planning method as part of what became known as the global gag rule.
The gag rule created significant setbacks for the accessibility of funding for groups and organizations that refused to be gagged. For example, the Marie Stopes Centre in Nigeria refused to subscribe to the gag rule, resulting in the organization losing the U.S. Agency for International Development funding. This funding was essential to their services as it allowed them to support many health centers that catered to sexual and reproductive health needs, as well as relevant outreaches. The loss of funding was detrimental to reducing Nigeria’s unwanted pregnancies and mortality rates. The global gag rule and its consequences limited reproductive choices for those most in need of it.
President Joe Biden repealed the global gag rule after he came into office. However, the aftershocks of Trump’s policies, especially in rural and vulnerable locations deprived of health aid and support, are still being felt.
Fast forward to June 24, 2022, and the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade’s landmark decision. The repeal has resulted in the American people losing their right to abortion. Unfortunately, for anyone who has paid attention to the tone of conversations surrounding sexual and reproductive health in U.S. history, this is not an isolated event, and its effect going forward will not end at the U.S. border.
For years, the U.S. has been recognized as a pacesetter, with many of its policies having significant influence over legislative decisions, amongst others, in many nations, particularly in developing nations. Therefore, it’s a no-brainer that reversing Roe v Wade will have global health ramifications.
Already, there are sub-conversations on abortion and birth control arising from Roe v Wade’s reversal. At the same time, morning-after pills are still legal in the U.S., with some states restricting how accessible the pills can be. There are suspicions that this could still be revisited by the Supreme Court, especially since Justice Clarence Thomas has suggested that judicial precedents protecting access to contraception be revisited. There are also talks about contraceptives like Plan B pills being a form of abortifacient – a drug that can cause abortion. This notion has been discredited as inaccurate but reflects the current reality of the difficulties of accessing contraceptives now in the U.S. A significant development is the possibility of people being at the risk of criminal prosecution for miscarriage. The reversal of Roe v Wade spells danger for us and the choices we can make.
In Nigeria, the laws regulating abortion are found in the Criminal Code and the Penal Code, which apply to Southern and Northern Nigeria, respectively. The laws are unambiguous. Abortion is a crime in Nigeria, which could result in up to 14 years in prison. Abortion is only allowed when the pregnant person’s life is endangered by carrying the pregnancy to full term.
Despite the above laws, Nigerians are getting abortions. There is no definite data in hand but the little data that can be gleaned from cases of abortion-related complications, mortality rates and morbidity rates recorded annually suggests that these abortions are primarily unsafe. Research by the Guttmacher Institute showed that people (maybe specify whether teenagers or young adults) deemed to be at risk of losing their lives made up 40% of safe abortions carried out in Nigeria in 2015.
The demographic most likely to want an abortion due to unwanted pregnancy is young people, including teenagers and adolescents. A study in 2018 showed that the rate of adolescent pregnancy in Sub-Saharan Africa was estimated at 19.3%, the highest even outside Africa. In many conservative African states, there is little access to proper sex education, free contraceptives or sexual health care for very young, sexually active people, especially in rural areas. None of these changes the truth that teenagers and adolescents in Nigeria are having sex. Most are non-consensual, leaving them vulnerable to multiple STIs, STDs, and unwanted pregnancies.
In several African countries, there is limited access to free contraceptives, especially for the young and unmarried. The shops that sell them perpetuate stigma around the use of contraceptives by shaming the people that purchase them. As long as contraceptive use is described as ‘dirty’ or ‘immoral,’ cases of unsafe abortions will only continue to rise, as well as the consequent complications that will result from it. The restrictive abortion laws in Nigeria are based on archaic morality, which are designed to discourage alleged sexual immorality and irresponsibility. The current reality faced by those who inadvertently have to choose between having children they’d rather not have or risking their lives and health by getting unsafe abortions paints a glaring picture of reproductive injustice.
Being a mother is a decision which has long-lasting consequences. Motherhood – childbirth is not the endpoint. Instead, it is a lifelong commitment with financial, emotional, medical and mental consequences. The stakes are too high for those involved to have a passive say in the decisions they get to make.
Removing the cover of shame and faux morality and safeguarding the sexual and reproductive rights of women, trans-men, and some non-binary people in an ideal society reduce the chances of contracting sexually transmitted diseases and infections. Furthermore, being informed about reproductive health allows people to avoid unwanted pregnancies and access healthcare, ensuring they can carry a pregnancy to full term without avoidable complications.
Studies by UNESCO show that comprehensive knowledge about sexuality empowers young people to make better long-term decisions about their reproductive health and protects them from exploitation.
Contraceptives being available to those who do not yet wish to have children, or don’t intend to have children at all, means fewer unwanted pregnancies, which means fewer abortions. In the U.S., research shows that available and accessible family planning services, including contraceptives, have reduced the frequency of unwanted pregnancies that have to end in abortion. As a result, no one will have to die due to unsafe abortions because they do not want to keep a pregnancy.
But it’s also essential to remember that these benefits are not just restricted to sexual or general health.
In a country like Nigeria, the most populous black nation, poverty keeps rising as the population grows, and family planning is not just a reproductive right, it is a necessity. Giving a choice about family planning to half of the country empowers them to be an active and productive part of the labour force. This allows them to contribute to the economy while also ensuring fewer children who cannot be taken care of are being born. The math is simple, and it balances.
In Nigeria and beyond, restrictive laws or policies regarding sexual and reproductive rights do not have positive results to justify them. There is no data or research to show a decrease in unwanted pregnancies. On the contrary, the population keeps rising, with poorer living conditions. Moreover, there are more unsafe abortions than ever, so maternal mortality rates will continue to grow.
Sexual and reproductive rights are human rights, and women, trans-men, and some non-binary people shouldn’t be seen first as birthing vessels but as people with full agency.
The only laws that should regulate our sexual and reproductive health are those that protect our health and general well-being before anything else.
Edited by Cassandra Roxburgh and Uzoma Ihejirika