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June 20, 2006
Dr. Ejike Oji
The fatal unsafe abortion of a family member galvanized Ejike Oji (pictured) to become a doctor and advocate for women’s reproductive rights in Nigeria.

In Nigeria, where abortion is illegal except to save the woman’s life, some 20,000 women and girls opt for unsafe abortions and die each year because they were forced to choose between two problematic scenarios: Continue an unwanted pregnancy that disrupts their lives or find an unqualified person to perform an illegal, potentially fatal abortion.

Dr. Ejike Oji, director of Ipas Nigeria, says that the lives of women and girls can be saved — by revising the law and also by training health-care providers to treat women injured by unsafe abortion. Under his leadership, Ipas Nigeria has successfully brought postabortion care training into all of the country’s midwifery schools; in a nation with too  few doctors for its 130 million people, midwives can increase services in communities underserved by other health-care staff.

But also key to promoting women’s reproductive health and reducing these preventable deaths is sensitizing the public and policymakers to the reasons why safe abortion care is necessary.

Here, in an audio recording, Dr. Oji tells how the loss of a loved one encouraged him to enter the medical profession and drives him — decades later — to ensure women in Nigeria can terminate pregnancies without terminating their lives.

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