A confluence of cultural, religious and geographical factors in Ghana create a sensitive environment where issues of sexual and reproductive health, especially abortion, have remained highly taboo for decades.
There is nothing wrong with a woman terminating her pregnancy at any point and for whatever reason she chooses. Fetuses are not babies. Women are not incubators. Abortion is not murder.
To me the abortion experiences of prolife women can offer us insight into understanding internalized stigma. They remind us of the empathy we must harness to improve abortion care for all women, especially those with the least access to social support.
I realize that for years I've been thinking that every loud woman in a bar who gets drunk or laughs about showing her underwear is stupid. Stupid why? If you want to have sex, that can be a very effective way of going about it. Have I been implicitly assuming that women don't want to have sex?
So, Mom, the reason why we may feel this anxiety, this pressure prior to revealing ourselves, is due to the fact that we were born into a social culture that does not approve of the ways in which we are different.
Ester Abeja wants to show her face as a victim of gang rape, of abduction, of torture and daily violence, to be the image of a woman who has been forced to kill her own child and her own people.
Abortion was a rite of passage for most of the girls I knew in the small Southern town where I spent my teenage years. As a contraceptive measure, teenagers did what teenagers have been doing forever -- they pulled out. Any other birth control was a premeditated sin.
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