“Students assumed by Monday they’d be ready to go back to school. Many never saw their families again, let alone the classroom.”
It’s been two decades since I started my career in gynaecology and abortion care. Wow, has it really been that long? Looking back, I was so young and dealing with some really tough things.
In the early 2000s, I was in medical school and abortion wasn’t yet legal here in Ethiopia. We used to have hospital wards – septic wards they called them – dedicated to helping women and girls who’d had unsafe abortions.
There were lots of untrained people who would promise to end people’s pregnancies, but their intention was just to make money. They’d insert objects like wood or metal sticks into wombs causing severe infections, uterus damage, organ failure.
Countless women and girls died. It became our normal.
I especially remember Fridays. Whoever was on duty on Fridays would always have a sleepless night and deal with tragic, complicated cases, because that’s when the students came. High school students assumed they would end their pregnancy on a Friday, heal up over the weekend and by Monday they’d be ready to go back to school. Many never saw their families again, let alone the classroom.
I never set out to work in this field. But when I was sent to a rural community as a young graduate from medical training, all I could see was women suffering. There was a huge gap in their healthcare that was utterly destructive. And so I knew where I was needed – and I joined obstetrics and gynaecology with my whole heart, to be part of the solution.
Thankfully in 2005, a year after I graduated, a new law was introduced which allowed safe abortion services. The government had finally responded to the public health crisis of maternal deaths.
Miracles didn’t happen overnight. There was a lot of work that went into its implementation, including changing the attitudes of healthcare providers and educating people of their right to have an abortion.
But 20 years on from that law reform, the changes I’ve witnessed have been nothing short of phenomenal. If you go into an Ethiopian hospital now, you won’t find ‘septic wards’ anymore – they’re no longer needed. Maternal deaths have reduced by 70%. I’ve witnessed so many young women joining college and having better opportunities in life.
I have worked in cities, in remote villages, in public hospitals, in private practice, and now with MSI – I’ve seen all types of women and situations.
My work gives me a sense of shouldering the responsibility and the burden that women face. When someone comes to me for an abortion, it’s not always easy for them – they’re dealing with something unplanned, perhaps they’ve experienced sexual violence or struggled with their decision.
Their choice and whatever is going on for them should be understood and respected. The systems and their community aren’t always supportive. But I can be.
It was only when I joined MSI that I learned that there are campaigns and groups trying to ban abortion in this country again. They’re attempting to devalue the changes our country has seen, saying the law to liberalise abortion was imposed on us and that it’s wrong.
What nonsense. The law passed after lots of campaigning from Ethiopian civil society. It was based on objective data and a goal to prevent unnecessary deaths – and what has followed are significant improvements.
Even if you forget about the data, there are people like me who have witnessed it all firsthand. These anti-abortion groups are simply denying reality.
If it’s an evidence-based discussion, there is no way an abortion ban should come back. To drag us back to where we were twenty years ago is unjustifiable. But sadly, these things are politicised.
As a medical professional, I want to be part of showing decision-makers the positive and life-saving impacts of legal abortion.
I want to say to them: look at a young woman – no law should decide to end her life.
