Ipas > South Africa holds hearings about abortion law amendment

South Africa holds hearings about abortion law amendment

September 10, 2007

South Africa’s abortion law has meant drastically fewer deaths from unsafe abortion.

Photo courtesy of Pep Bonet, Panos Pictures.

Ten years after the passage of South Africa’s Choice on Termination of Pregnancy (CTOP) Act, an anti-choice organization has challenged an amendment to the landmark legislation on procedural grounds.

South Africa’s Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act (CTOP) Act No. 92 went into effect in February 1997, guaranteeing safe abortion care and replacing the restrictive Abortion and Sterilization Act No. 2 of 1975. The 2004 CTOP Amendment Act was added to ensure widespread availability of termination or abortion services, on procedural grounds.

The CTOP Amendment Act No. 38 of 2004:

Empowered provincial Members of Executive Councils (MECs) of Health, instead of the national Minister of Health, to designate abortion-providing facilities and make abortion-related regulations in their provinces;
allowed suitably trained registered nurses to perform first-trimester procedures;
and made it a crime for a termination to occur at any undesignated facility.

But in 2005, the South African chapter of the international anti-abortion group Doctors for Life challenged the amendment in a case at the South African Constitutional Court. Their suit argued that Parliament failed to fulfill its constitutional obligation to facilitate public consultation when it passed the CTOPS amendment.

The court ruled the CTOP Amendment Act invalid in August 2006 and mandated that public hearings should be held. Public hearings about the amendment started this August and will continue until all provinces have held such meetings. To date, eight of the nine provinces have held the required consultations.

Ipas South Africa Director Mosotho Gabriel emphasized that the case challenged only how the amendment was passed. The CTOP Act remains intact, and decisions made in accordance with the CTOP Amendment Act will continue to be valid until mid-January 2008.

She said: "The Constitutional Court ruling did not rule against the original act, CTOP Act No. 92 of 1996, and neither did it rule against the contents of the challenged Amendment Act No. 38 of 2004. Pregnant women continue to access TOP services by choice in various provinces of South Africa, although there are still some challenges that the country is facing. These include training of TOP providers and awareness among the disadvantaged members of communities."

But if the Constitutional Court deems the consultations inadequate, the amendment could be voided. The results could roll back progress in the provision of termination services; for instance, changing who can designate TOP facilities would likely increase the time it takes to approve facilities and, thus, women’s ability to access services.

Declaring the amendment null could also mean that trained registered nurses would no longer be able to provide services under the law, thereby reducing the number of qualified health-care professionals performing abortions.

Johannesburg-based Ipas South Africa participated in the hearings in the Eastern Cape, Gauteng, KwaZulu Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, and Northern Cape provinces. It also submitted statements in favor of the act during these hearings.

From Ipas South Africa’s perspective, the amended act is an appropriate policy response to women’s need for reproductive health services. Reversing the amendment would endanger years of progress toward realizing reproductive and human rights, said Gabriel.

She said: "There is no doubt that the implementation of the amendment act has positively affected women in South Africa. The country has witnessed a drastic reduction of 91 percent in maternal deaths due to illegal abortions. Ipas, together with as the department of health and pro-choice groups, will work tirelessly to ensure that the amendment act complies with the requirements of the Constitution as ruled by the court."

The amendment’s provisions, if upheld after the consultations, will go a long way in redressing the uneven distribution of abortion services across provinces. Women in rural areas have little or no access. The amended act will bring South Africa closer to the department of health’s target of 70 percent of primary health-care and community-health centers rendering abortion services. Currently, only 55 percent of health facilities have authorization to provide legal termination of pregnancy services.

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