We need a comprehensive abortion care policy - Professor Sai

Professor F.T Sai, a Reproductive Health Expert has called for the adoption of a comprehensive abortion care and services policy to be made accessible to all to help prevent the avoidable complications and difficulties many women experience.

He said women who needed such services must been seen to be leading the crusade and sending clear messages across that they needed a freedom to choose between having children at certain times and terminating unwanted pregnancies for their own development.

Speaking on a GTV programme dubbed the “maternal health channel”, Professor Sai said the issue of abortion being detested in society was purely based on the society’s moral ethics.

He said “in the event that any woman gets pregnant irrespective of the circumstances and want to abort it then becomes a moral issue but in dealing with the moral issue we need as a country to be compassionate by ensuring that the person did not lose her life through complicated abortion processes”.

Professor Sai said complications from abortion were one of the major factors in the high rate of maternal mortality in Ghana because many people resorted to illegal means in their frustrations to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

The one time Chairman of the National Population Council (NPC), and advisor to the Ghana Government on Reproductive Health, said beyond morality, every person had the right to live and that no woman should die because of a mistake or whatever brought about the pregnancy.

Professor Sai said as a nation, “it behooves on all of us to understand that termination of pregnancies were not pleasant and that something compels people to have an abortion and so in that state, they should have access to facilities that will guarantee their safety and lives”.

He cited countries like Canada which did not have any law on abortion and South Africa that had explicit laws on abortion and therefore had low records of maternal deaths whiles women in those countries were able to take up opportunities and be relevant to the national development.

The Maternal Health Channel is aired on GTV every Thursday to raise issues and concerns about maternal deaths in the country to rally the needed support and logistics to reduce its prevalence in the country.