Cruel dilemma: To terminate

The joy of motherhood is killed by a moral and ethical dilemma when doctors advise termination of a pregnancy

Dora Mkize* (20) screamed for joy when she found out she was pregnant. Although unplanned, she was excited to become a mother and her delight escalated when doctors at the KwaZulu-Natal hospital told her she was having twins.

But Mkize’s joy turned to horror when she found out that one of her babies was not developing properly. Her doctors advised her to terminate the fetus — through a caesarean section operation — because there was no hope for its survival and it could also endanger the healthy baby. Mkize, already almost eight months pregnant, could not face aborting her baby.

Anaemia was the cause of the second baby’s irregular development. Mkize could not provide enough nutrients, mostly iron, for both babies to develop properly. Her doctors told her that, if she had been diagnosed earlier, simple daily supplements of folic acid could have prevented this scenario.

But she only found out that she was pregnant at six months

Almost half of all pregnancies globally are unplanned, according to a 2014 study conducted by United States-based research organisation Guttmacher Institute. Published in the academic journal Studies in Family Planning, the research found that 40% of the 85-million pregnancies in 2012 were unintended. Half of these pregnancies were aborted, 38% resulted in live births and 13% ended in miscarriage.

Africa had comparably lower rates of unplanned pregnancies at 35%, but the authors said more abortions occurred in African countries than in developed countries. And many of these abortions are unsafe because

Photo: Oswaldo Rivas/Reuters Going viral: Nicaraguan Marta Ruiz, who was diagnosed with the Zika virus during pregnancy, holds her son Ithan Davila. She was lucky; the virus can cause a serious birth defect of the baby’s brain.