The Protestant Council of Rwanda (CPR) reportedly had a two-day retreat earlier this month to discuss the high rates of abortion in the country, which led to their apparent decision to halt abortion services in all their hospitals. Available data indicates that church-based organizations including members of CPR, in 2015, owned and operated more than 30 per cent of all hospitals in the country. Currently, the abortion law permits abortion in cases of rape, incest, forced marriage, and in cases of risk to the health of a woman or the foetus, or if the pregnant person is a child. Nothing in the allowed grounds for abortion sounds like a fun activity, where two people happily made love, got pregnant with a child who they would raise with love, but instead went for abortion. This happens at a time when Rwanda is struggling with a teenage pregnancy crisis, where in the last five years, at least 100,000 teenagers had children. Also, Rwanda’s unmet need for Family Planning remains high, at 13.6 percent, over the past decade. A 2022 study by the World Health Organisation and the US-based Guttmacher Institute highlighted that between 2015 and 2019, there were a total of 548,000 pregnancies annually, among which 295,000 (54 per cent) were unintended and 84,300 ended in abortion. The study also showed that despite the government’s move in 2018 to remove the requirement of court approval and the second doctor's permission for a legal abortion, abortion rate stagnates. It indicates negligible changes in abortion rates from 1994 to 2019, marginally increasing from 25 to 28 per 1,000 women of childbearing age. Limited access to abortion services and religious influence, where more than 90 percent of Rwanda’s population are Christians, are the great contributors to the low uptake of abortion services. Nevertheless, almost half of all abortions in Rwanda are performed by nurses and untrained individuals, and are considered to be of very high risk. An estimated 34 per cent of abortions are conducted by traditional healers while 17 per cent are induced by the women themselves. This, according to a 2015 study, has led to a high complication rate of 54 per cent and 55 per cent among poor women in both rural and urban areas, with greater complications related to abortions induced by women themselves – at 67 per cent. Limiting abortion care will not reduce abortion cases, it will instead put more lives of women in danger. Whether they are victims of rape and defilement, or a woman with an ectopic pregnancy. It is a step back in already achieved milestones in women's healthcare.
