Sierra Leone To Decriminalise Abortion
A draft law, which would decriminalise abortion, has been approved by the Sierra Leonean government, which is a country with one of the world’s highest maternal mortality rates.
On Friday, President Julius Maada Bio had informed the 10th Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights in Freetown that his government had unanimously supported a bill on risk-free motherhood.
According to him, the law would guarantee both the health and dignity of all girls and women of procreation age in the country, especially after the US Supreme Court had removed American women’s constitutional right to abortion.
President Bio stated that he was “proud” that Sierra Leone was implementing a “progressive reform” while women’s rights in sexual and reproductive health were either being overturned or threatened.
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The main organisers of the conference had welcomed the move as a large step forward for women and rights groups in Sierra Leone. The President said that the Parliament will debate and vote on the legislation.
The current abortion law in Sierra Leone’s dates far back to 1861, a whole century before it had won its independence from Britain. The procedure is banned unless the mother’s life is at risk.
It was estimated by health authorities that high-risk abortions are the cause of approximately 10 percent of maternal deaths in the small West African country.
It was reported by the United Nations Population Fund that there were 1,120 mother deaths per 100,000 births in Sierra Leone in 2017, one of the world’s highest mortality rates.
The parliament had adopted a law on safe abortions in 2015, but Ernest Bai Koroma, the president at the time, had refused to approve it due to pressure from religious groups.
Female genital mutilation also affects nearly 90 percent of women in the English-speaking country that had been ravaged by an 11-year civil war during which thousands of women had been raped.
