Africa-Press – Ghana. Giving birth as a teenager, especially in a deprived community like James Town, a densely populated suburb of Accra comes with immense social stigma and minimal support.
For Naa Adukwei Sowah, the challenges were even more acute.
Born to a single mother who struggled to provide for her children, Naa grew up as the eldest of three and was forced to engage in petty trading to support her family, leaving little time for school.
After completing Junior High School at 15, Naa usually stayed up all night on the dimly lit and risky streets of Korlewɔko, a Ga community in Accra preparing and selling fried pork just to afford Senior High School.
What began as harmless interactions with male customers eventually turned harmful.
The whispers and sexual advances, which she initially perceived as playful, escalated into a situation that threatened her future.
Naa has unprotected transactional sex and became pregnant before she could save enough to enrol in secondary school.
Overwhelmed with fear, stigma, and a lack of knowledge about where to access safe abortion services, she confided in her friend Mercy to help her end the pregnancy.
Mercy offered her two options: To either drink a concoction of Guinness mixed with ground glass or insert pointed sticks shaped like kebab skewers into her vagina to induce a miscarriage.
“The first option sounded safer and easier.” Naa recalled. “I drank the concoction and hoped it would work without complications. But the next day, I had severe abdominal pain and started bleeding.”
By the second night, Naa was gasping for breath and growing weaker. Her mother rushed her to the hospital, saving her life just in time.
In Ghana, many girls share similar experiences, resorting to unsafe methods to end unwanted pregnancies due to fear, shame, and misinformation.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines unsafe abortion as a procedure for terminating an unwanted pregnancy “either by persons lacking the necessary skills or in an environment lacking the minimal medical standards, or both.”
Unsafe abortion remains a significant public health challenge in Ghana, contributing notably to maternal mortality.
According to the Ghana Health Service (GHS) Family Health Division’s 2019 report, complications from abortion accounted for 9.2 per cent of direct maternal deaths.
Many others survive but suffer from long-term consequences such as infertility and chronic pelvic inflammatory diseases.
Dr. Chris Opoku Fofie, Deputy Director of Reproductive and Child Health at GHS, notes that abortion-related deaths are almost entirely preventable with the right interventions.
He emphasises the need for girls and women to access approved medical methods rather than unsafe alternatives.
In 2023 and 2024 alone, GHS data shows that health facilities recorded 14,086 abortions among girls aged 10 to 19.
Additionally, there were 31,013 electives; abortion at the request of a woman, and 28,638 medical abortion cases recorded in public health facilities nationwide within the same period.
Despite these numbers, public awareness of Ghana’s abortion laws remains low. Under Ghana’s Criminal Code Amendment (PNDC Law 102, 1985; now part of Act 29, Section 58), abortion is legally permitted under specific conditions:
First when the pregnancy results from rape, defilement of a mentally challenged person, or incest. Second, when continuing the pregnancy poses a risk to the woman’s life or physical/mental health, and finally when there is a substantial risk that the child would suffer from a serious physical abnormality or disease.
To reduce unsafe abortion practices, the GHS is rolling out the Comprehensive Abortion Care (CAC) programme to equip health facilities nationwide with trained professionals, appropriate tools and medical supplies to provide safe services.
“The idea is to institutionalise abortion care and make it part of our routine health services, Dr Fofie said.
He urged health professionals to separate personal beliefs from professional obligations saying, “It is unacceptable to redirect patients to unsafe alternatives because of religion or personal views, when women’s lives are at stake.”
Dr. Chris Opoku Fofie, Deputy Director, Reproductive and Child Health, Ghana Health Service
Organisations like the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG) are also stepping in to educate and empower young people.
Madam Valaska Dinsey, PPAG’s Service Delivery Manager PPAG, says the organisation reaches out to young people aged 10 to 24 through platforms like “Yenkasa,” an online and call-based service that connects them with trained professionals for confidential advice on reproductive health.
“From our experience, parental guidance is often missing,” Dinsey says. “These children rely heavily on what they see on social media or hear from their friends, which can be dangerously misleading.”
Sometimes, she says, young people call just to verify information they have heard elsewhere—proof of how critical such platforms are.
Girls like Adjele, also native of Jamestown, who had an unwanted pregnancy through unprotected sex when she was 18 years old says access to safe abortion saved her life and future.
Now aged 30 , she is serving as a community health nurse in a health facility in her vicinity and recounts that at 18, she faced an unplanned pregnancy in an abusive relationship.
She chose a safe abortion, returned to school and eventually earned a nursing degree.
“Ending that unwanted pregnancy safely was the most important decision I made for my future.” Adjele shares that, “Without it, I’d be stuck in a cycle of abuse and poverty.”
To her, abortion is not shameful, it is a necessary medical option and healthcare.
“There are many things in life we can’t control. Access to safe abortion should not be one of them.” she says.
While society views abortion through religious, moral, and legal lenses, medical experts opine that abortion is more than a medical, ethical or legal issue.
Parents, religious bodies, traditional leaders and society as a whole need to understand and appreciate that abortion is a human issue, deeply personal and rooted in the lived experiences of women and girls.
Until stigma, ignorance, and misinformation are replaced by empathy, education, and access, unsafe abortion will continue to steal lives and futures of many.
Source: Ghana News Agency
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