Abortion practices undermining reformist laws - experts

Abstract

A combination of stigma, ignorance of reformist laws and health care facilities that offer abortion services being ‘unidentifiable’ mean that 43% of designated facilities today fail to provide first-trimester pregnancy termination services.
This emerged at a Dialogue on Safe Abortions, attended by many of the country’s top experts on the subject and held at a Cape Town hotel last month.
Dr Eddie Mhlanga, Cluster Manager of Maternal, Child and Women’s Health in the national health department, said it was ‘very sad’ that 3 years after the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy (CTOP) Act was liberally amended, only 57% of designated TOP facilities (including Marie Stopes private clinics) were actually functional.