Abstract : At least 700,000 illegal abortions are performed in Nigeria each year, 70-80% of which involve teenage secondary school or university students. To gain insight into the attitudes and behaviors of Nigerian women, focus group discussions were conducted in Lagos between December 1993 and January 1994. The 72 female participants were divided into 6 groups. Adolescent participants cited a desire not to interrupt their education, fear of parental disapproval, or lack of support from boyfriend as reasons they would abort an unplanned pregnancy, while married women would consider abortion in cases of too many existing children, too short a birth interval, or a pregnancy resulting from an extramarital affair. Teenagers were more likely than married women to indicate they would go to a midwife, chemist, or friend to perform the abortion, largely due to financial reasons. Women 20-45 years of age had accurate knowledge of the signs of abortion-related complications and indicated they would seek medical attention in such a case; teenagers, however, were not only unknowledgeable about these danger signs but also reported they would be more likely to run away from home than report their complications to their parents or present to a health facility. Teenagers and single women in their 20s had more liberal views toward abortion than married women; however, the majority of group participants opposed legalization or liberalization of abortion due to religious views of abortion as murder and concerns promiscuity would be encouraged. On the other hand, support for sex education and family planning services in the schools, as a means of preventing illegal abortion, received broad support. Single women were most knowledgeable about methods of fertility control, while teenagers were the least informed; virtually none of the women in any age group could define what constituted a safe time of the menstrual cycle. Although religious beliefs are an obstacle to abortion law reform in Nigeria, these group discussions indicate support for improved availability of modern methods of fertility control in a country where the contraceptive prevalence rate is only 8%.
Source : Source Popline : http://db.jhuccp.org/popinform/basic.html - PIP 094226.