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February 25, 2008
African schoolgirl
Photo courtesy of Panos Pictures.

February is Reproductive Health Month in South Africa. On the 29th, Mosotho Gabriel, Ipas South Africa Country Director, will give a speech at a certification ceremony for termination of pregnancy (TOP) providers in the country’s North West province. More trained TOP providers means greater reproductive health for South African women, she notes.

The purpose of Reproductive Health Month — born from collaborations between Ipas and the national departments of health in 2006 — is to inform and educate communities about all reproductive health issues, including abortion. South Africa has some of the most liberal legislation in the world in terms of recognizing human rights, including sexual and reproductive health rights. Indeed, the Constitution says that the state “may not unfairly discriminate on one or more grounds, including: sex, gender, pregnancy, marital status, age and religion.” Furthermore, it posits that “the right for sexual and reproductive health and rights is grounded in a woman’s right to life.”

But even with liberal policies and attitudes toward reproductive issues, the country still faces challenges. South Africa grapples with the AIDS pandemic: UNAIDS estimates that 19 percent of South African adults are living with HIV/AIDS. Additionally, cervical cancer is a leading cause of death among South African women. And though abortion is legal and permitted under a wide array of circumstances — and abortion-related deaths have decreased by 91 percent since the law was liberalized — services are often not readily available in remote areas of the country.

Gabriel notes that legal reform has provoked an increasing demand for TOP services. To make abortion more easily accessible, Ipas South Africa has worked to train mid-level providers to safely terminate pregnancies.

Today, 726 TOP providers have been trained and almost 34 percent of all trained TOP providers are practicing.

“Seventy-six percent of all pregnancy terminations in 2006 were provided by registered midwives during the first trimester,” Gabriel says.

In her speech, Gabriel plans to congratulate all TOP providers who supported provision of a service that, she admits, is often seen as controversial.

“I am grateful to them for the lives of women they have saved. They made implementation of the abortion law in South Africa a reality,” she says.

For more information, contact:
Kirsten Sherk
Senior Associate, Media Relations
e-mail: sherkk@ipas.org
phone: 919.960.5612
fax: 919.929.0258