Abortion is healthcare, not a crime

 

Abortion should never be categorized as a crime, it should be legal and safe abortion should be made available to everyone that chooses to opt for it. End the fucking stigma! (Photo credit: Google)

28th September of every year is international safe abortion day and today, I feel a need to talk about the topic. I am never afraid to be controversial; in fact, I am surprised I’ve been on good behavior on this journey but, let’s have this conversation.

Let me tell you a short story; there was this young girl that lived on Victoria Street – where I spent a good number of years. She was 17 at the time and had just left secondary school, she lived a few blocks away from me so, I know her a little bit and she comes to mind on a day like this.

I was on my way back from work that fateful day; it was a Monday and I must have had a long day and wasn’t prepared to hang out on the street with men as we usually do on some evenings but, I saw a group of people bickering around the girl, she was pregnant.

Apparently, she was impregnated by one “agbaya” not too far away from her house; one of those instances where people go to a particular house to fetch borehole water, she was clearly a victim of circumstances, and to make it worse, the dude denied her even when people had seen him around her before.

Your guess is as good as mine, the young girl was made to give birth to the baby and that was the end of her academic dreams. Her poor mother took that as an excuse never to push further for her to go to school; I was brave enough to advise her to let her consider abortion at the time but I was painted as a public enemy.

The woman even threatened to go to my church to report me; I was an interpreter at the time in my church and was seen as the devil for “advising her to commit murder” because I advised her to help the young girl avert what would later become a family problem.

I am not saying I was right and I am not here to gloat, but this young girl gave birth to a blind boy, and to this day, the entire family goes from crusades to hospitals looking for a solution; last time I checked, the young girl abandoned the child with the mother and absconded… I digress.

I understand Nigeria doesn’t recognize abortion as a human right but I do. I am not asking people to become reckless when they can have protected sex and all, but you cannot close your eyes to certain variables and contexts when the topic is brought up.

You can be pro-life and respect pro-choice people at the same damn time. Listen, you’ll rather have a poor young girl mother a child she can’t take care of because of your religion? That’s filthy to me and selfish too, abortion is essential healthcare and safe abortion should be made available to every woman.

I saw a post yesterday that says 13% of maternal death worldwide is caused by unsafe abortions, omo! When we decide to be more understanding and a little more empathetic, we’ll be less judgmental and the world will be a better place. I am not going to make this longer than this, abortion is not a crime and should be a right to every woman (and men should we start carrying babies someday)

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