Aniteye Patience, Mayhew Susannah
University of Ghana.
Afr J Reprod Health. 2011 Mar;15(1):47-55.
Unsafe abortion is one of the major contributors to high levels of maternal mortality in Ghana, despite a relatively liberal legal environment. This paper presents findings from a semi-structured hospital-based survey of 131 Ghanaian women who had experienced unsafe abortion. The majority of respondents were young and single, with no children or just one child. Most had middle-school education or higher and were employed, as were their partners. While knowledge of family planning was high, knowledge of specific methods was barely moderate and only 17% respondents had ever used it - much lower than the national ever-use of 39%. There were widespread misunderstandings about who could use family planning and 41% said they were afraid of side-effects. Eleven percent said their pregnancy was planned and 31% that they wanted their pregnancy but were pressured by partners or families to abort. Overall, about one-third of respondents said they aborted because they were not married and two-thirds said they aborted because of socio-cultural pressures. This study highlights clear ongoing failings of the family planning programme which needs to be revamped, as well as an urgent need for improving public knowledge about access to safe, legal abortion services.
尽管加纳的法律环境相对宽松，但不安全堕胎仍是该国孕产妇死亡率居高不下的主要原因之一。本文介绍了一项基于医院的半结构化调查结果，该调查对131名经历过不安全堕胎的加纳女性进行了调查。大多数受访者年轻且单身，没有孩子或只有一个孩子。大多数人接受过中学或以上教育且有工作，她们的伴侣也是如此。虽然对计划生育的知晓率较高，但对具体方法的知晓率仅为中等水平，只有17%的受访者曾使用过计划生育——远低于全国39%的曾经使用率。对于谁可以使用计划生育存在广泛的误解，41%的人表示他们害怕副作用。11%的人表示她们的怀孕是计划内的，31%的人表示她们想要怀孕，但受到伴侣或家人的压力而堕胎。总体而言，约三分之一的受访者表示她们堕胎是因为未婚，三分之二的人表示她们堕胎是由于社会文化压力。这项研究凸显了计划生育项目目前明显存在的不足，该项目需要进行改进，同时迫切需要提高公众对获得安全、合法堕胎服务的认识。
