Unsafe abortions claiming more lives in Ghana

Unsafe abortions are claiming the lives of more women and young girls in the country, accounting for 14 per cent of all maternal deaths.

Madam Georgina Addo, a Senior Midwife at the Obogu Health Centre in the Asante-Akim South District, said this was quite disturbing, and that, there was an urgent need to step up public education.

Globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 47 million women perform abortion annually, with 36,000 of them dying.

Out of the worldwide figure, 20 million are classified as unsafe and 98 per cent of this occurs in sub-Sahara Africa.

Madam Addo said the practice was not common among only teenage girls but married women, desperate to get rid of unwanted pregnancies.

She was contributing to discussions at a public forum held to educate the people, particularly girls, on the dangers associated with unsafe abortion at Kumeso, near Obogu.

It was organized by the Queen of Kurofa, Nana Yaa Ntidwumah, with support from the Centre for the Development of People (CEDEP).

Madam Addo discouraged young girls from engaging in premarital sex to avoid getting pregnant and the resultant temptation to abort the foetus.

She counseled that in the event of an unwanted pregnancy, the appropriate thing to do was to seek professional assistance to prevent needless deaths.

Ms. Aba Oppong, Programmes Manager of CEDEP, urged parents to spend quality time with their teenage daughters to protect them from bad peer influence.

They should be helped to focus on acquiring academic careers to ensure a better future.

She denounced the high level of sexual activeness among young girls and said that should be a source of worry to everybody.

Nana Ntidwumah reminded parents to live up to their responsibilities to their children by providing them with their basic needs.

She told them that leaving the adolescents to take responsibility for their lives or fend for themselves, was risky and unavoidably corrupts their morals.

Source: GNA