Update from Ethiopia: filmmaker sees impact of legal abortion in women’s lives

Filmmaker Lisa Russell interviewed health-care providers and clients to draw out stories about abortion that will challenge viewers

On March 27, filmmaker Lisa Russell completed shooting in Ethiopia for a documentary about unsafe abortion. Her work on the film, supported by Ipas, has taken her from the bustling capitol of Addis Ababa to small town health centers and isolated rural communities, and introduced her to women of remarkable strength and deeply committed health-care providers.

Russell has documented her trip on her blog. "[It] became so transparent that girls and women will do anything, a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g to get rid of an unwanted pregnancy,” she wrote. "And this desperation to end it is the reason women continue to die from it."

Russell spent her first week in Ethiopia in the rural town of Zeway, in the Shewa zone of Ethiopia, about two-and-a-half hours by car from Addis Ababa. There she sat in at the Batu Health Center, a general health clinic that treats patients seeking a broad range of health services, including treatment for malaria and HIV/AIDS, as well as reproductive health care. The staff there report that they see approximately five women every day who come for abortion care – either to terminate a pregnancy or to treat a miscarriage – but that because of the limited staff and equipment, they can only treat one.

The challenges faced by the health centers providing safe abortion care were matched by the obstacles women themselves face in getting such care.

"I came to learn very quickly, there is no shortage of stomach knots when you're shooting a film on unsafe abortion," Russell said in her blog.

In the waiting area at the health center, Russell met women who had been raped and were anxious to end the resulting pregnancies, as well as women with wanted pregnancies who were having miscarriages. She followed the women who had been raped through the entire process, as they went from the health center in Zeway to a public hospital an hour away (the staff at Batu believed the young women's pregnancies were more advanced than they had the capacity to treat). Russell saw firsthand the hurdles women face in their efforts to find safe abortion care – not only did the two women she met have to travel far from their homes, twice, to reach their providers, they also had to purchase the necessary materials (gloves, needles, pain medication, etc.) themselves befor the procedure could begin.  (This is typical health care in public settings around Africa, where hospitals are chronically underresourced.)

In addition to following the stories of these two young women and their health care providers in Zeway, Russell also interviewed several women in Addis Ababa who have had unsafe abortions and survived, family members of women who died from complications of unsafe abortion and policymakers working to ensure that women have access to safe abortion care.

One woman interviewed had been raped several times and had self-induced eight unsafe abortions. (In Ethiopia, rape is an enormous health and safety issue for women, and is one of the circumstances under which a woman may seek a legal abortion under the law that legalized abortion.) According to Russell, the woman has chronic health problems as a result of her numerous unsafe abortions – including back and uterine pain – as well as a child born with birth defects. But she says the events in her life allow her to talk openly about her experiences; she is also a police officer and makes a point keeping her eye out for young women who might also need assistance.

Russell said of the many women she’s met, “I think what is going to be great about this film is that we do indeed cover the whole spectrum and see the impact that change in legislation has on saving lives of women.”

You can read more about Lisa's experiences in Ethiopia on her blog.  Come back to www.ipas.org periodically for updates on her progress.

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