Sierra Leone debates decriminalizing abortion

Sierra Leone debates decriminalizing abortion

A simple bench and makeshift nurse’s station have transformed an abandoned building into a temporary clinic in rural Njagbahun, Sierra Leone.

Marie Stopes International operates free family planning services to those in hard-to-reach areas.

Working by the light filtering through a curtained doorway, nurses provide "post-abortion care" and distribute contraception.

Mariama Soriba, 25, peeled off from the local market, in need of the birth control implant.

“I’ve come for the family planning service so I can space out my children,” she said.

Women’s reproductive rights are up to be widely expanded in Sierra Leone as lawmakers debate the Safe Motherhood Bill, which would legalize abortion and give wider access to family planning and reproductive health services.

Government officials have called the bill a necessary response to the reality of high numbers of deaths among pregnant women, particularly from botched abortions.

When she got pregnant at 16, Fatou Esther Jusu was terrified that it would derail her future.

Fearing judgment from her family, she took friends’ advice and bought misoprostol, a drug whose uses include abortion, from a local pharmacy.

It didn't work. Desperate, she tried again and miscarried.

Over 20% of girls between 15 and 19 in Sierra Leone get pregnant, according to the U.N. Population Fund, one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the world.

Now 21, Jusu considers herself lucky.

One friend died after taking an expired version of the medication.

With those experiences in mind, the nursing student is mobilizing others in support of the bill that would decriminalize abortion in the West African country.

“This gave me the cause to focus my education, my activism on SRH (sexual reproductive health) issues because I have been a victim, I don’t want other girls to be a victim of it,” Jusu said.

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