Image: Dr Richard Mugahi, Commissioner for Reproductive, Maternal and Child Health, Health Ministry. PHOTO/COURTESY
On 11 July we shared a report from Uganda in the Daily Monitor exposing how women and young girls access unsafe abortion services through shadowy brokers, published on 7 July. The report triggered revived demands from civil society for the implementation of guidelines and legal reforms to improve access to safe abortion services.
The response, published in the Daily Monitor on 14 July, by Dr Richard Mugahi, Commissioner for Reproductive, Maternal and Child Health at the Health Ministry, said health workers who discriminate against women in need of post-abortion care go against the professional code of conduct and will be held accountable. He said the health sector’s primary role is to preserve lives and provide emergency, compassionate care to all women without judgment or discrimination, adding that such cases should be handled as medical emergencies, not moral debates. “Most of these women come to our facilities in critical condition, and despite the dedication of some health workers available, many die. These cases must be treated as emergencies without hesitation or stigma. Unfortunately, these clinics are uncontrollable by us, but rather by the law enforcers.”
However, in response to calls for legal abortion care, he claimed that “legalising abortion is not a magic solution to the complications associated with it, stressing instead the need to focus on prevention through public education and access to contraceptives. He opposed decriminalisation of abortion because: “it will make the vice rampant just as any other harmful commodity like drugs.”
In contrast, the Coalition to Stop Maternal Mortality due to Unsafe Abortion expressed deep concern over the growing number of deaths linked to unsafe abortions, reviving their efforts to demand urgent reforms of Sections 130, 131 and 132 of the Penal Code to decriminalise abortion in line with constitutional and international human rights standards…. Citing data that estimate 354,000 abortions occur annually in Uganda, with the majority of them unsafe, the coalition argued that criminalisation only drives the practice underground and into the hands of unqualified individuals.
Mr Dan Kaye, a professor of obstetrics at Makerere University, underscored the cost of unsafe abortion to Uganda’s public heath system, highlighting that defilement, rape, incest and teenage pregnancy should be added to the Penal Code for a woman or girl to terminate a pregnancy.
According to the 2024 annual crime report, a total of 12,317 victims were defiled, of whom 12,009 were girls between the ages of newborn and 17 years, with guardians, parents and teachers among the major perpetrators.