A Case for the Legalisation of Abortion in Nigeria

If you asked a Nigerian today if they would support or advice someone they know to get an abortion, their answer would likely be no. Proceed to ask them why and the answer will be one (or both) of these two.

I've labelled them "the religious reason" and "the safety reason."

The Religious reason

Here, the Nigerian opposes abortion from a religious point of view. They make reference to a god who frowns on abortion; who hates it, in fact. They believe this god hates abortions because it ends an innocent life – more on that later. And they may even quote some verses in the Bible or Quran to support their point, even though neither holy book speaks explicitly on abortion.

The Safety reason

In Nigeria, abortions are known for being dangerous. I'm sure every Nigerian has heard stories of a woman losing her life or experiencing serious health complications as a result of an abortion. These stories are everywhere, sometimes they're shown on TV. And so most Nigerians are scared of abortions, understandably.

But what if I told you that abortions don't have to be dangerous? That an abortion can be safer than childbirth? That the danger associated with abortion in Nigeria is a direct result of its criminalisation?

Well, all of these things are true. Abortions are not inherently unsafe.

They are unsafe and dangerous in Nigeria precisely because they've been criminalized by the Nigerian government.

So here, I make my case for the decriminalisation of abortion in Nigeria.

First things first, what is an abortion?

If you're here, you probably know what an abortion is, but just for clarity, an abortion is a procedure to end a pregnancy. It is literally a miscarriage, except it is human-induced, rather than naturally-occurring, hence why it is also known as an "induced miscarriage."

In Nigeria today, abortion is a crime. You can get imprisoned for it.

Section 228 of the criminal code states that any doctor that provides an abortion to a woman is guilty of a felony and up to 14 years of imprisonment.

Section 229 states that any woman that obtains an abortion is guilty of a felony and may be sentenced to imprisonment for up to 7 years.

Section 230 states that anyone supplying anything intended for a woman's abortion is also guilty of a felony and maybe sentenced to up to 3 years of imprisonment.

Most Nigerians support these laws for reasons I've already stated above. But to further expatiate, the average Nigerian believes that a fetus is a living human being. From this point of view, an abortion is murder. Therefore, a woman who gets an abortion is a murderer.

In the abortion debate, this is known as the "pro-life" position.

But I fall on the other side of the debate, the "pro-choice" side. And I find the pro-life reasoning to be silly, at best.

Because how is a fetus alive? How can it be referred to as a human being, a person?

Does it have any of the characteristics of a living person? Is it conscious? Is it sentient? How about biological functions... Does it have a working brain? Does it have a beating heart?

The answer to all of these questions is no. At least at the time most abortions take place (≤ 13 weeks), the fetus has none of the above characteristics.

Come with me.

Consciousness, sentience and the brain

Consciousness is the quality of being aware of oneself and your surroundings.

Sentience, on the other hand, means to be able to experience feelings and sensations (including pain).

So when do consciousness and sentience develop during fetal development?

Well, according to research (cited below), sentience develops between 18 to 25 weeks of fertilization. This is towards the end of the 2nd trimester.

Consciousness doesn't develop until after week 24.

Consciousness and sentience cannot exist without an adequately functional brain, and although the brain starts to form around 5 to 7 weeks, it doesn't become adequately functional until around 26 to 30 weeks.

(It is important to note that many areas of fetal brain development are not fully understood, so there's a lot of differing opinions and conclusions on this issue. Further reading will be included below).

Heartbeat

This is probably the pro-lifer's favourite point.

"The fetus has a heartbeat at six weeks!"

No, it doesn't.

There is no heartbeat at 6 weeks because there is no heart. The muscle tissue necessary for a heartbeat doesn't form until the 20th week (or about 5 months).

The sound people call a heartbeat is the sound of the ultrasound machine converting electrical pulses from a cord in the embryo. This is a little pulse, an electrical signal in a cluster of organising cells that will later form the heart. Then this sound from the machine is magnified which creates a sound similar to a heartbeat.

So at this stage, you could say that some of the "ingredients" for the formation of a heart have been laid out, but there is still no heart, let alone a heartbeat.

Fetuses do not have a beating heart at 6 weeks. That is a common misconception.

What this means is that the important organs and properties necessary for a person to considered "living" don't become adequately functional or even present until around 20 weeks of fetal development (or later) and most countries with legal abortions place a legal limit at around 20 - 22 weeks.

This seems reasonable and understandable, given the evidence.

In addition to this, most abortions take place in the first 13 weeks (the first trimester), with less than 1% occurring in the third trimester. And these third trimester abortions are always to save the mother's life, or in cases where a serious abnormality has been detected in the foetus.

Abortion views also follow this pattern; Support for abortion is highest in the 1st trimester and lowest in the 3rd trimester.

At the time most abortions happen, the embryo is a lifeless, unconscious, insentient clump of cells, with no brain and no heart. It is NOT alive and is NOT a person.

Shouldn't we prioritise the well-being of the pregnant woman, the sentient and conscious person?

It would be unreasonable for us to value the "life" of an unconscious clump of cells over the choice, wellbeing and future of the woman.

However, even if we granted that this fetus was a living person, does that give it a right to use another person's body to keep itself alive?

No. That would be a right that even fully functional humans do not have. No person is entitled to use someone else's body or nutrients or organs to keep themselves alive. The owner of the body gets to decide on whether they want to use their body to give another person life or not.

If the owner of the body doesn't make this choice or if they withdraw consent along the way, then this choice has to be respected even if it means the other person dies.

If this was put in the context of pregnancy, then a woman can decide she doesn't want to support a baby with her body for nine months and she can decide to end the pregnancy, regardless of the "personhood" or "life" of the fetus.

Considering this argument, the case could be made that there should be no legal limit on abortions at all.

Religious beliefs also shouldn't be a barrier to getting or allowing abortions.

Christianity

The Bible, during Adam's creation (Genesis 2:7), says: "Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being."

This verse appears to imply that humans don't become alive until they've taken the breath of life.

This would mean that a fetus is only alive when it has taken its first breath – which is when it is born.

But there's a passage in Psalms that Christians tend to employ in arguing against abortion. Psalm 139:13:

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb."

They argue that god "knits" the fetus in its mother's womb and this is enough grounds to prohibit abortion as that would be disrupting God's work.

My thoughts on that:

1. How can mere humans disrupt a sovereign and all-powerful God's work or will? Wouldn't that mean he's not sovereign and all-powerful?

2. Considering that about 50% of pregnancies end in a miscarriage, god is already a pretty prolific abortionist himself. Why does he destroy so many of his "knits" before they're even finished? And why can't we do the same?

Isn't him prohibiting abortion a bit hypocritical since he does it all the time?

3. You can't prohibit something based on your religious beliefs in a religiously pluralistic society. That's like Muslims pushing to ban pork because it offends Allah.

But unless Nigeria is a theocracy, that is just plain ridiculous. Your god's rules should apply only to you and those who believe in your god, not to me and the wider society.

Islam

The Quranic view is that Allah puts the soul in the foetus at around 120 days/ 4 months. This means that until 4 months, the foetus isn't a living soul and can thus be aborted.

On the safety.

I mentioned earlier that abortions don't have to be unsafe and that the danger associated with abortion is as a result of Nigeria's criminalisation of it. If you're wondering what I meant by this, I'll explain by painting a scenario (or rather two scenarios).

Scene 1: Lisa lives in a country where abortions are legal and accessible.

One day, Lisa discovers that she's pregnant. She's 8 weeks gone (which is when most women find out) but she doesn't want to keep the pregnancy. She's not ready for a baby. So she goes to the hospital to ask for an abortion and she speaks to a doctor. The doctor informs her on the procedure, tells her about the side effects and everything she should expect. Then he gives her gives her some abortion pills – misoprostol and mifeprostone. He tells her the directions for use and continues to follow up on her to guide her abortion process.

The abortion goes smoothly and 1 to 2 weeks later, Lisa has successfully terminated the pregnancy and is back to living her normal life.

Scene 2: Ekaete lives in a country where abortion is illegal. She falls pregnant but she doesn't want to keep the baby.

She panics and calls her friend, Ada, to tell her about her predicament. Ada says she knows someone who knows someone who can help. She comes back with Farouk. Farouk – who dropped out of secondary school and can barely string together a sentence in English – claims to be an expert in abortions.

"I dey do am well well" he says.

Ekaete is suspicious, but she's also desperate and has no other option, so she goes with Farouk. She pays him ₦2,500 and Farouk mixes a local gin together with a host of other active and herbal agents to create a homemade abortifacient. He gives this mixture to Ekaete. She drinks it and a few hours later begins to experience severe abdominal pain and excessive bleeding. She is rushed to the hospital where she's told that her uterus has been damaged and she would never be able to have children. She also suffers internal bleeding and almost loses her life.

Scene 1 is the typical situation when abortions are legal. Scene 2 is what happens when they are illegal.

When abortions are legal, they're not only straightforward and simple, they're also safer – much safer. In fact, they're safer than childbirth.

What Farouk performed on Ekaete is called a clandestine abortion. It is what the WHO defines as an unsafe abortion, i.e the termination of a pregnancy by people lacking the necessary skills, or in an environment lacking minimal medical standards, or both.

Ekaete's situation is very common in Nigeria. According to the Guttmacher Institute, the number of unsafe abortions carried out in the country is estimated at 456,000 every year.

This is bad news, whether you're "pro-life" or "pro-choice."

Nigeria's criminalisation of abortion is actively harming women. Clandestine abortions have a much higher risk of complication and death, and this is why abortion in Nigeria has a reputation for being dangerous.

If they were legal, women would be able to enter a hospital, speak to a doctor and get a proper abortion from a trained professional who knows what they're doing. But since they're illegal, women have to go underground and get clandestine abortions from quacks who don't have even the slightest training in women's health.

Banning abortions doesn't stop them, it doesn't even reduce them. It just means that more women die; deaths that could have been prevented if abortions were simply legalised.

Furthermore, abortion criminalisation doesn't just affect women who want to have abortions, it also affects women who have miscarriages or whose babies have died in utero, as they could be accused of having an abortion and be imprisoned.

And it doesn't end there.

Criminalising abortion also has long term consequences for society.

Women who are denied abortion are more likely to fall into poverty than those who have access to abortion.

This means that when women don't have access to an abortion, the children they give birth to will likely be raised in poverty.

And more children being raised in poverty is bad news for any country. Children raised in poverty are more likely to have physical and mental health problems, more likely to die young, less likely to have a degree and more likely to be poor as adults. This perpetuates a vicious cycle of intergenerational poverty. These poor children are also more likely to be criminals. A link (though inconclusive) has been reported between the legalisation of abortion in a country and a decrease in the crime rate around 2 decades later.

Whether we like it or not, legalising abortions and making them accessible is at least one way to reduce poverty and crime rates in a society.

Notice I say to also make them accessible. It's not enough for it it to be legal, it has to be accessible too. Legalising it is pointless if most women can't access it for whatever reason.

Many people think abortion is only permissible in cases of rape or where the mother's life is in danger. It is a harmful idea that a woman has to experience some traumatic event for her abortion to be justified. Women can have abortions for a variety of reasons which include, but are not limited to rape and pregnancy complications.

"I don't want a baby" is a good enough reason for an abortion. Children should only be brought into the world by individuals who are ready and willing to take on the responsibility of caring for them. They should never be forced on an unwilling person, it is a recipe for disaster.

In conclusion

The pro-choice stance isn't about killing babies or not caring about life, it's about valuing existing life over potential life.

Forcing children to be born into families where they will be unloved or malnourished is a far greater evil than abortion could ever be because it is the torture of a conscious, sentient human being.

Now, I think prevention is better than cure. We should make attempts to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place, and sex education is the best way to do this. But the only sex education most Nigerians get are abstinence-only programs, which do not work. Young Nigerians need to be taught comprehensive sex education; sex education that teaches not only abstinence, but contraception and protection so as to reduce the risk of an unwanted pregnancy.

However, contraception can fail, so it is still very important for abortion to be legal and accessible.

Abortion is healthcare, not a crime.

Criminalising abortion only harms women, children, and in the long run, society as a whole.

Abortion should be legal and accessible.

Sources and Further reading

Abortion in Nigeria

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Nigeria

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4970740/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-61995250.amp

Consciousness, sentience and the brain.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/14767059209161911

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1744165X14000547