Students Educated On Unsafe Abortion

Students from various senior high schools in the New Juaben Municipality were over the week-end educated on how to prevent unsafe abortion of pregnancy at a workshop at Koforidua.

The programme, which was organized by the Eastern Regional Office
of the Nation Commission on Civic Education (NCCE), was aimed at
enlightening students, especially the girls, about their right to safe
abortion.

Mrs Esther Mensah Mandela, a Senior Nurse at the Koforidua
Regional Hospital, said many women died or sustained various injuries
through unsafe abortion every year.

She said the good news, however, was that there was an abortion
law of Ghana which allowed a woman to have safe abortion under certain
conditions.

She said: “The conditions are rape, mental health reasons and
issues of incest or where a girl below age 18 gets pregnant.”

Mrs Mensah Mandela emphasized that a rape victim had the right to
go for safe abortion if she became pregnant, adding, a girl below the
age of 18 or 16 could have safe abortion “when her parent, elder
brother or sister or any trusted adult gives permission to a health
provider on her behalf.”