Appellate court ruling and draft African Charter pose threat on abortion rights, stakeholders say

The Court of Appeal has overturned a landmark judgment, which handed women and girls a right to abortion.[File,Standard]

A recent Appellate Court ruling on the right to access abortion and a draft African Charter on Family, sovereignty, and Values that proposes changes that could reshape legal and health systems across the continent have sparked concerns among several stakeholders.

An Appellate court ruling dated April 26 overturned a 2022 High Court ruling that affirmed the right to access abortion in a case of a teenager who presented with pregnancy complications and received emergency post-abortion care.

The High Court ruled that arresting women and medical practitioners was unlawful and that access to abortion was a fundamental right.

However, the Appellate court overturned this, arguing that it denied the unborn baby the right to life.

It provided an exception that it could only be undertaken when the life of the mother was at risk.

“In effect, abortion is not a fundamental right guaranteed under the Constitution. On the contrary, the constitution expressly prohibits it but provides exceptions in limited circumstances where it may be permissible,” the Appellate court ruling read in part.

Meanwhile, the draft Charter rejects Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) and calls for the exclusion of safe abortion from legal frameworks and the replacement of comprehensive sexuality education with abstinence-only models.

Health experts warn that such measures could lead to the rollback of essential health services, particularly for women and adolescents.

“This may increase risks associated with untreated sexually transmitted infections, unmet need for family planning, unwanted pregnancies, and unsafe abortions,” Public Health Specialist Dr. Moriam Olayide Jagun said.

The draft Charter, developed through a series of inter-parliamentary conferences held in Entebbe, Uganda (2023–2025), is expected to be tabled for validation at the upcoming Interparliamentary conference on Family Values in Accra, Ghana, in May 2026.

Law experts emphasize that African states operate within a binding hierarchy of regional human rights treaties.

"The apex instrument is the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which guarantees dignity, equality, freedom of conscience, and non-discrimination,” Dr. Jessica Oga, the Head of the Ubingwa Think Tank at Afya Na Haki, highlighted.

Experts say the draft Charter does not align with the Maputo Protocol, which guarantees safe abortion where pregnancy results from rape or incest, the right to control one’s own fertility, and freedom from forced marriage, all of which represent decades of African feminist legal struggle.

While the Charter does not explicitly repeal the Maputo Protocol, observers warn it could gradually undermine it through legal reinterpretations, amendments, and state withdrawals.

According to Dr. Moses Mulumba, Africa has a rich, sophisticated, and genuinely indigenous human rights tradition built in African courts, by African jurists, in African languages, addressing African realities.

"That tradition, from Makwanyane to Motshidiemang, from the Banjul Charter to the Maputo Protocol, from Rwanda’s post genocide constitutional architecture to the ECOWAS Court’s education jurisprudence, speaks with one voice on the central fact: human dignity is not conditional,” Dr. Mulumba said.

He highlighted that the draft Charter does not yield to cultural preference, parental authority, or state power.

Mulumba said that in the most precise legal and philosophical sense, the Charter asks Africa to abandon the ground on which all other rights stand.