South Africa has a high demand for pregnancy termination services despite a high awareness of family planning, a research paper indicated on Wednesday.
According to the paper, released by Marie Stopes SA (MSSA), 62% of sexually active women in the country were already using contraceptives. Despite this, Marie Stopes SA programme director Paul Cornellisson said there was a continued high demand for abortions in the country.
”Despite the high prevalence of contraceptive use overall, this conceals the very low rate of usage in rural compared with urban areas where services are much harder to come by,” said Cornellisson.
In the Eastern Cape, for example, about 80% of sexually active urban women used contraceptives, but its usage was as low as 22% among their rural counterparts.
Before the 1996 Choice of Termination of Pregnancy Act came into effect, more than 44 000 women were admitted to hospitals annually to be treated for complications arising from ”back street” procedures. ”Although women no longer need to risk their lives, many cannot get the help they need via the government health services.”
The provision of pregnancy termination services was hampered by a lack of trained staff, resources and beds, and the fear or unwillingness of staff to participate in abortions.
”The consistently high demand for termination services is unexpected in a nation where the knowledge of family planning methods is widespread,” Cornellisson said.
Marie Stopes SA is a non-profit private sector body that provides reproductive health services including abortions. It is also the largest provider of abortions outside of the public health sector with clinics in all major South Africa cities.
Between 1997 and 2000, 177 462 legal abortions were carried out of which 23% were performed by MSSA. – Sapa