Durban - *Samantha is a 17-year-old girl who aborted her five-month-old foetus at an illegal back-alley clinic in Pietermaritzburg last month.
Since then, Samantha has suffered severe pain and abnormal bleeding, and was forced to tell her mother, who rushed her to their family doctor.
Samantha’s diagnosis is not good, and doctors are sceptical about whether the teen will ever be able to conceive again.
This is just one of the many horror stories to come out of the illegal abortion industry in the provincial capital.
Pamphlets offering “quick, same-day, pain-free” abortions are plastered on walls, light poles, garbage bins and other fixed structures around the Pietermaritzburg CBD, with cellphone numbers. Pamphlets are often left on the windshields of cars parked in the busy city streets.
Nurse and social worker, Daya Pillay, told the Daily News that in her 25-year experience, illegal abortions had skyrocketed in the past five years.
“It has become a massive problem. Young women are bleeding to death as a result of the botched procedures being performed on them,” Pillay said.
Three years ago, Pietermaritzburg police vowed to clean up the city and crack down on illegal abortionists who preyed on young women. This followed a number of cases in which foreigners had been arrested for illegally administering abortion drugs to women who were well over three months pregnant.
The police joined forces with local anti-abortion activists, women’s groups and NGOs in projects around the city, which included the handing out of flyers and pamphlets to educate people about the plague of illegal abortions.
But the scourge continues unabated.
Pillay said teenage pregnancy in Pietermaritzburg was on the increase as a result of an influx of young immigrants from other provinces and countries who came to the city because of the educational institutions.
“These youths are away from the care and guidance of their parents, which in turn exposes them to a lifestyle which involves drinking, partying and unsafe sex. The results of that are the growing statistics of teenage pregnancy,” Pillay said.
She said ruthless opportunists had opened illegal abortion businesses to take advantage of young women who were desperate for a solution to a problem which they believed could not be solved by going to a State institution, where they feared being shamed. “We need to start educating young women that legal and safe assistance is available,” she said.
According to Pillay, the illegal use of the prescription drug Cytotec, which is used to terminate pregnancies, is the major cause of the increase in backstreet abortions.
“The drug is obtained illegally from unethical pharmacists. These abortionists are then selling the drug to young women for between R500 and R800, and they take the drug unsupervised by a qualified medical practitioner. Also, the drug can only be used in instances when the foetus is under three months old. Young women are aborting foetuses at five and six months at these illegal clinics. It is a real-life horror story,” Pillay said.
According to the South African Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act, an abortion may only be done “during the first 12 weeks of the gestation period of her pregnancy, and from the 13th week upwards, may only be done by a medical practitioner if the woman’s life is at risk, or there exists a substantial risk the foetus would suffer from a severe physical or mental abnormality.”
Marie Stopes advocacy and engagement manager, Andrea Thompson, said the safe way to seek an abortion was to go to a legitimate provider.
That can be a public health facility, a private doctor or a Marie Stopes centre.
“A safe provider has a fixed address and a landline phone number, and follows the rules in the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act, including only providing services up to 20 weeks’ gestation,” she said.
KwaZulu-Natal Health MEC, Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo, has vowed to crack down on illegal abortions with the help of the SAPS and the National Prosecuting Authority.
“There is nothing safe about an illegal abortion; instead they pose a health risk to the young mothers and women in our country,” he said.
Dhlomo is currently advocating a provincial campaign to promote the legitimacy of the right to safe abortion.
*not her real name
Daily News