Abstract
Background: Elective abortion with its medico-legal controversies is a major worldwide debatable topic. The question whether to legalize abortion or not continues to be a contentious affair. The public interest nature of this debate has led to the emergence of two advocacy groups: Pro-Life and Pro-Choice. The former argues that the unborn fetus is human with life. The latter strongly postulates that women should have choices of what happens to their body. Whilst this debate lingers on, we decided to do a four month clinical observation of the reality on the ground in Ghana’s Abura Dunkwa Ditrict Hospital. Methods: This was a clinical observational study. It covered a four month clinical management of abortion related patients at the Abura Dunkwa district hospital of Ghana. History of presenting complaints and social/ family histories were particularly noted in details. We then compared our observation against abortion laws around the world and Ghana in particular. Findings: we observed that the lack of publicity and agreed interpretation of Ghana’s abortion laws have resulted in criminal abortions leading to complications such as incomplete abortion, hemorrhage, sepsis, etc. We also discovered that many criminal abortions in fact met Ghana’s abortion Acts’ ‘exceptions for termination of pregnancy’ Conclusion: Ghana’s abortion Acts though do not make abortion legal, the laws have permitted enough grounds for justifiable terminations of pregnancies, yet ignorance of the law has led to women’s continued engagement in criminal and unsafe abortions leading to severe morbidities and mortalities Keywords: Abortifacients, hemorrhage, sepsis, morbidity, mental health, adjustment disorder DOI : 10.7176/JHMN/61-02 Publication date : April 30 th 2019
Highlights
One outstanding feature of human civilization is the enactment of laws and legislations to regulate, control and promote the behavior and activities of people.Conscience, human values, morality and religious orientation impact greatly on laws made by governments all over the world
The courage to kill a human being is overwhelmingly inhibited by conscience and human values that even some countries whose judicial system sentences culprits of serious crimes to death end up either commuting it to life sentence or granting a pardon
This normal pregnancy physiology does not put the woman’s life or health at risk and it would be unheard of for a qualified medical practitioner to start wondering if he/she should carry out a pregnancy termination only because he/she thinks pregnancy is a risk to health
Summary
One outstanding feature of human civilization is the enactment of laws and legislations to regulate, control and promote the behavior and activities of people.Conscience, human values, morality and religious orientation impact greatly on laws made by governments all over the world. The courage to kill a human being is overwhelmingly inhibited by conscience and human values that even some countries whose judicial system sentences culprits of serious crimes to death end up either commuting it to life sentence or granting a pardon If this universal acceptance not to take another’s life is undisputed, the question is where and when do humans start having life?. An abortion that is not consistent with statutory provisions whether performed by a qualified personnel or a www.iiste.org quack abortionist is Criminal Abortion If it was initiated and carried out by quack and unqualified person or in an environment that lacks the medical standards it is referred to as an Unsafe Abortion. Some pregnant women may request for termination of pregnancy without any maternal or fetal, socio-cultural and legal reasons Abortion in this article is used synonymously with elective abortion
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