Lack of information is a major impediment

Less than 7% of national health facilities provide abortions, according to a recently released briefing report by the global human rights organisation, Amnesty International.

The health department has a human rights obligation to guarantee women access to abortion services, but isn’t doing enough to implement the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act, according to the report.

“We conducted research into access to termination of pregnancy at some public clinics and found that there were many barriers to abortion,” says Louise Carmody, an Amnesty International researcher.

Access to information was one of the chief obstacles. “Many women and girls do not know about the law and the services they are entitled to,” she says.

“There is no central place where women can get information about abortions. There isn’t even a list of the facilities around the country where the services are offered on the department’s website. It’s difficult for women to find out where they need to go and what the process entails.”

According to Carmody, some people still don’t know that abortion is legal, nor until what stage of a pregnancy they can have the procedure. In South Africa, abortion is legal up to 20 weeks of pregnancy.

But Yogan Pillay, the deputy director general for maternal and women’s health in the national health department, says lists of government facilities that provide abortions are available in district health offices around the country.

South Africa has 52 health districts and their head offices are usually situated in bigger towns or cities.

He says the department has increased access to contraception and family planning services to address the demand for unsafe abortions.

Provincial health departments are working with the police to deal with illegal abortionists.

“However, these illegal abortionists do not operate as fixed clinics but rather as mobile providers where they make appointments with their clients to meet along the street and take them to a house or to any structure that is not easily identifiable — this is done surreptitiously.

Carmody argues that government must also improve and expand abortion services “rather than placing the emphasis on improved access to family planning services”.

“The department has some great mobile platforms that provide women and girls with information around HIV and pregnancy, such as MomConnect [a free cellphone SMS service].

“These platforms should include information on abortions.”