COPUA Legal Committee chairperson Mateyu Sisya said that the dialogue sessions created an opportunity to enlighten students and community members about what is in the Termination of Pregnancy Bill.
“The ultimate aim of the bill is that women and girls should not die from unsafe abortions. It is a bill that aims to reduce maternal deaths from unsafe abortions,” he said.
Reverend Cliff Nyekanyeka, Coordinator for Religious Network for Choice, said churches have different positions on the issue of abortion.
“Most churches allow their members to access safe abortion when the life of the pregnant woman is in danger. Others accept that women can access safe abortion when a woman or girl is raped or defiled,” he said.
The government, through the Law Commission, reviewed abortion laws and drafted the proposed Termination of Pregnancy Bill. Once enacted, the bill will expand the grounds under which women and girls in Malawi can access safe abortion.
Malawi continues to grapple with the burden of unsafe abortions. Research - by Malawi’s College of Medicine and Guttmacher Institute - shows that over 141,000 abortions happen in the southern African nation every year.
With a restrictive abortion law enacted by the colonialist in 1930s still intact in Malawi’s Penal Code, most abortions in Malawi are unsafe.
Currently, a consortium of civil society organisations, namely the Malawi Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights Alliance, the Malawi Human Rights Rehabilitation Centre, the Centre for Human Rights Rehabilitation, the Centre for Solutions Journalism, and the Coalition for the Prevention of Unsafe Abortion (COPUA), are sensitising various stakeholders about the need to enact a new Termination of Pregnancy Act.