Nurse Sentenced to Death in Kenya After the Death of a Woman Due to a Botched Abortion. CONSEQUENCE: Extortion and Harrassment of Health-Care Workers!

illegal abortion

Stigma and false information are what prevent them from procuring to public health facilities for the procedure and hence they resort to unsafe methods, risking their health, fertility and lives. They often ingest chemicals or undergo surgery performed by doctors of questionable ability and reputation, resulting in the deaths of approximately 1,200 women a year due to complications.

One of these deaths became international news last week when a Kenyan court convicted a nurse, Jackson Namunya Tali, of causing the death of a young woman following complications from a botched abortion in 2009. He received the death sentence.

According to reports, corrupt police are using the case of the death sentence to extort and harass health care workers. Reportedly, they storm clinics, sometimes in the middle of a procedure, and threaten to arrest the workers if they don’t pay a bribe. Rather that spending the weekend in jail, to wait for the courts to release them for providing a constitutionally protected medical procedure, many clinic employees choose to pay the bribe.

Immediate action is called for from the Kenyan Ministry of Health to release standards and guidelines governing the provision of safe and legal abortions. It is hoped that this would help to clear the confusion that the Kenyan public have about women’s right to abortion.