When was your last abortion?

Are you considering an abortion, had one or impregnated a woman who aborted with or without your knowledge? ROSE KWAMBOKA asks the difficult questions that Kenyans would rather bury in the sand — like an unwanted pregnancy

Ashley is a student at a university in Nairobi. She has been pregnant six times, by the same man, and aborted them all.

It is her boyfriend who has been giving her cash to get rid of ‘it’ every time she falls pregnant. He says he is not ready to become a parent yet. Neither is she and both have no regrets.

Vicky, a Form Four leaver waiting to join university, ‘accidentally’ fell pregnant while visiting her relatives in the city. The thought of being thrown out of home by her no-nonsense mother could not allow her to keep the pregnancy. She was also not about to let her dreams and ambitions go down the drain, so her cousin took her to some dingy ‘hospital’ on Accra Road, Nairobi.

Bitter end

The friendly doctor they found took care of the ‘intruder’ threatening to mature into a baby and agreed she didn’t need to inform the man who impregnated her. They have been together for two years and he has no clue that he almost became a father.

Ana’s relationship came to a bitter end when she terminated her pregnancy, even after discussing it with her boyfriend and deciding that they would keep it. It is her sister who recommended to the doctor who performed the procedure saying the man could change his mind and leave her with the burden of raising a child. He dumped her.

Linet, on the other hand, is a married woman with three children. When she discovered she was pregnant with her fourth, she could not take it. They were not financially able and even fending for the three children was difficult. She did not consult her husband, as she was sure he would be against the idea, never mind that it is her who has to shush her hungry brood to sleep. So she aborted — secretly.

Her married friend’s husband had sworn never to have another child because he was against fathering another son. They had two sons and no daughter.

He refused to change his mind when his wife fell pregnant, having forgotten to take her contraceptive pills.

Complications

“I will not accept that child,” was the stern warning she got from her husband, “especially if it is a boy.”

What the husband failed to understand was that he was solely responsible for determining the sex of the child. For fear of losing her husband, she also got rid of the pregnancy.

Mary was always the role model daughter and student. So when she got pregnant and having no friends she could trust and confide in, she found her solution on Google. The remedy that Google provided caused her complications that landed her in a hospital with a stillbirth. She later came to find out that extraction of a stillbirth is free in some hospitals, which made it not only safer, but also cheaper for her.

The Google Zeitgeist 2012 report shows that Kenya tops the list in the world on ‘how to abort’ when it comes to the ‘How to’ category Google searches. This was followed closely by ‘how to conceive’ at number four, ‘how to seduce’ at number six and ‘how to romance’ at eight. For obvious reasons, ‘how to use a condom’ wasn’t big a hit.

The sad part is that the most common finding is a Do-It-Yourself abortion method that usually has fatal results. Other results that come up include drinking of concentrated juice or coffee, or at least five cups of chamomile tea a day, as it is known to induce abortion.

But according to experts, these methods may only work in the first trimester of pregnancy.

Ashley, the six-time abortion veteran, says the process is not painful: “It also does not take long. One just feels a bit woozy after the procedure, which takes no more than five minutes.

“There was once I went to see the doctor during my lunch hour break and was back for my afternoon classes as usual. It is not such a big deal as people like to put it,” she points out matter-of-factly.

Humiliation

But Vicky is of a different opinion. She says that the reason she never likes talking about the ordeal is because of the humiliation she underwent.

On entry into the ‘ward’, she was hit by the raw smell of blood and cheap disinfectant that immediately made her nauseous. The room was not only small, but also overcrowded with other women who were there for the same reason.

With barely any privacy to change into the hospital gown she had been given, she had to undress in front of the other patients who seemed oblivious of her. Not to mention the gown had been handed over to her directly by a patient who had just been from the operation table and barely covered her essentials.

Once she had lain on the operation table, her legs spread out and hoisted on some metallic suspenders, a scissors-like apparatus was inserted into her uterus and an excruciating pain followed.

Soon after, she felt some cold cylindrical like metal doing rounds in her uterus, poking mercilessly at her womb. She felt like telling the doctor to stop but it was too late. The damage had already been done.

Then, a sucking apparatus was placed at her virginal opening to suck out the remains of the foetus, like a vacuum cleaner sucks dust off a dusty carpet. After all was said and done, she was presented with a pad to take care of the extra bleeding and painkillers to ease the pain at no extra cost.

“Next!” The nurse shouted.

For between Sh2,500 and Sh5,000, depending on how good one’s negotiation skills are and how advanced the pregnancy is, one can get an abortion.

When I sought to find out why a life changing procedure was so cheap, Tabitha, a female doctor, said the procedure isn’t complicated and demand is high. The money is easy and quick and for every doctor who refuses to conduct one on principal, there is another unscrupulous medic who will, or a quack that will cash in on the money.

Latrines

Depending on how the procedure is done, the foetus may be left in the womb to be discharged later after one is out of the hospital as was the case of Lydia whose foetus was discharged two hours later after the procedure. She put it in a bag and her boyfriend disposed it off in a latrine.

It is not unusual to find fetuses thrown in latrines, footpaths and garbage bins, as was the case in Highrise Estate, Nairobi, where residents woke up to find a foetus in a pit located near the entrance to Kibera.

In universities, after students procure abortions in their halls of residence, the cleaners are left to dispose off a large number of fetuses dumped in dustbins, washrooms or plastic bags.

But just how widespread are abortions, which by the way, are illegal? According to the Kenyan Demographic and Health Survey, 44.5 per cent of births among women aged 15-49 in Kenya are unplanned. They are what Kenyans call ‘accidents’.

Other reports suggest that 316,560 spontaneous and induced abortions occur annually, meaning that for every 100 live births in Kenya, there are 29 abortions.

As you read this, there is a man and his pregnant girlfriend discussing abortion someplace; a woman is having an abortion; another woman could be breathing her last — the result of a botched abortion, and thousands of couples are having unprotected sex, right this moment, without a care in the world.