Following the teenage pregnancy article that I wrote and published on the 27th January 2017 I strongly felt like I should have a little talk about termination of pregnancy. The subject has been haunting me after my interview with “Thandi Maxabaniso and Motshidisi Ditshwele” about how they went through their term of pregnancy. It was never an exciting journey; however through their determination and hard work they managed to pull it through and made something out those situations, “WELL DONE LADIES” The society really needs role models like you especially young women.
On the 11th of December 1996, South Africa adopted a law, the Termination of Pregnancy Act, which gives women of any age or marital status access to abortion services upon request during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and in exceptional cases, extends access to the first 20 weeks of pregnancy. This act replaced the 1975 law that severely curtailed access to abortion services by requiring a physician’s or in some cases a magistrate’s approval for abortion procedures.
Ref (ABORTION REFORM IN SOUTH AFRICA: A CASE STUDY OF 1996 CHOICE ON TERMINATION OF PREGNANCY ACT)
By Solly Guttmacher (Associate Professor) Farzana Kapadia (Assistant Research Scientist at the Department of Health Studies at the School of Education at New York University) Jim Te Water Naude (Registrar) and Helen de Pinho (Senior Researcher at the Department of Community Health of University of Cape Town, South Africa)
The subject of abortion is something controversial some women think that due to religious or spiritual beliefs abortion should not be legal, others think that it is within a woman’s rights to choose whether to terminate pregnancy or not, our country supports a woman’s right to choose.
TERMINATION OF PREGNANCY – it’s the spontaneous or artificially induced expulsion of an embryo or foetus.
We have come across all kinds of stories about why termination of pregnancy is rising daily, others would say they were not ready to have a child because they still staying under their parents roof or still in school but does this really convince one to consider abortion? Have you ever thought of the outcomes of having unprotected sex or have you done research before committing to something you might regret in the future? The government has given rights to us but we have to ask ourselves these important questions.
The question still remains if parents should be blamed or teenagers and their partners. The government is spending millions to introduce expensive and safe contraceptives in order to help reduce unwanted pregnancy; however hospitals are full of pregnant teenagers, or should we also blame department of health for not properly educating the youth on how to use contraceptives? This also brings me to how much the government is spending to even help unwanted pregnancy to be terminated.
Termination of pregnancy is very understandable in cases of sexual offences where victims were forced to have sex without their consent, given what they went through it will be hard for them to move on because the babies will be a constant reminder of what they went through (The trauma and humiliation) to that note I would like to applaud our government for a good system they have put through to help the victims of sexual offences.
