Abortion Challenges in Nigeria: The Need for Reform of Applicable Laws

This paper critically examines abortion challenges in Nigeria and calls for a critical and urgent reform of our applicable laws. This is premised on the fact that available statistics indicates that over 1,000,000 abortions occur in Nigeria annually, thereby representing about 33 abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age. It has also been averred that a portion of maternal deaths in Nigeria are caused by unlawful abortions and that such deaths do involve teenagers and young women. Women typically get abortions for a variety of reasons, such as their inability to care for a child financially and emotionally, their fear of being rejected by their partners, parents, peers, religious leaders, community leaders, and society if the pregnancy is discovered, their use of birth control, their age or illness making them physically or mentally unfit to have children, or their desire to end unwanted pregnancies brought on by rape or the failure of contraception, among others. Unfortunately, Nigeria’s current abortion laws ignore these facts, thus encouraging illicit abortions and all of its negative effects. This paper in view of the above examines the state of the law on abortion in Nigeria in comparison with other jurisdictions with a view to establishing that the Nigerian law is archaic and is in dire need of reform. This paper concludes that government must be proactive in dealing with abortion challenges even before they arise, through modern methods of health and safety measures as obtained and practiced in other climes.