In Harm’s Way: Executive Summary
“I have seen so much misery at the Kenyatta National Hospital . . . where women with abortion-related problems have died and others lost uteruses. There is no doubt the existing laws are colonial and too strict in the modern society.” – Professor Julius Meme, Permanent Secretary in the Kenyan Ministry of Health, 1999
Unsafe abortion claims the lives of thousands of Kenyan women each year. Their deaths are entirely — and easily — preventable. Yet the Kenyan government has done little to address the problem. Kenya’s abortion fatality rates are substantially higher than in the African region as a whole and more than nine times higher than for developed regions. It is not a coincidence that Kenya’s abortion law is also one of the most restrictive in the world.
