Health rights activists have warned that Zimbabwe's poorest women are being pushed into unsafe backstreet abortions because they cannot find accurate information about the limited circumstances in which the law already allows termination of a pregnancy. The warning was issued this week in interviews reported by NewsDay Zimbabwe, which quoted health policy expert Tinashe Mundawarara describing an information gap that leaves rural, poor and socially excluded women at the bottom of what he called the information food chain.
The stakes could not be higher. Studies from 2019 cited by Women and Law in Southern Africa national director Isheanesu Chirisa show that 219 abortions occur every day in Zimbabwe, with 80 000 recorded in that year alone. About 185 of those daily procedures involve adolescents. Between 2016 and 2017, 40 percent of pregnancies in the country were unintended, and a quarter of those ended in unsafe and illegal abortions.
What the law actually says about abortion in Zimbabwe
Contrary to widespread myth, abortion is not illegal in all circumstances in Zimbabwe. The Termination of Pregnancy Act permits termination on three grounds: risk to the life or physical health of the mother, serious foetal anomaly, and unlawful intercourse, meaning rape or incest.
But the lawful pathway is buried under red tape that activists say makes it nearly unusable. Lunia Centre for Youths executive director Tjedu Moyo told NewsDay Zimbabwe that a woman seeking a legal termination needs two doctors, the permission of a hospital superintendent and, in rape cases, a certificate from a magistrate.
Many women do not even know the law exists, and designated facilities are few, she said. That ignorance, combined with a cumbersome approval process, drives thousands of women into clandestine procedures every year.
It is not about legalising abortion for now, it's about ensuring the existing pathway works for those that need it, because they do need a working pathway.
Why the poor suffer most
Mundawarara, a health policy expert at the Health Law and Policy Consortium, said the information gap hits the poor hardest while the well to do simply cross the border or manage their own procedures safely.
Access to safe abortion is disproportionately affecting the poor, rural and socially excluded groups, he said, while financially able individuals procure abortion in neighbouring countries or practise self-managed abortion.
The information gaps noted relate to criminalisation, wherein the law is often portrayed as a dragnet, an umbrella provision covering every element and mischief around abortion.
The result, he said, is that access becomes difficult even for women who qualify for legal abortion, because they are either afraid of prosecution or discouraged by the procedural requirements.
This is a matter of national shame that demands national solidarity. Our mothers, sisters and daughters in the villages of Buhera, Gokwe and Binga are dying from procedures that a woman with money in Borrowdale or Mount Pleasant would never have to face. A health system that serves the rich and abandons the poor is not the health system our liberation heroes fought for.
Sanctions and the strain on maternal health
The crisis unfolds against a backdrop of a health sector squeezed by years of illegal Western sanctions that have choked access to medical supplies, donor funding and specialist training. While the sanctions lobby in Washington and London looks away, it is the rural woman in Zimbabwe who pays with her life. The activists' demands for accurate information, qualified providers and respectful services are demands this nation must meet with its own resources and its own resolve, because no outside power will do it for us.
What safe abortion care means
Stakeholders maintain that access to lawful, safe abortion care depends on more than the existence of a statute. It requires accurate information, qualified providers, privacy, timely referrals and respectful services across the health system.
Safe abortion care is delivered with methods and clinical support appropriate to the pregnancy and the patient's circumstances, by qualified health workers operating within the law and applicable clinical guidance. The word safe describes more than a medical technique. It also points to a system in which a person is not misled about eligibility, exposed unnecessarily to disclosure, sent from facility to facility without guidance or denied post-abortion care because of stigma.
As The Herald has reported, restrictive provisions and intense cultural stigma force women into backyard abortions that leave survivors with hidden psychological trauma, anxiety and depression.
Adolescents on the frontline
Chirisa said that without safe abortions being allowed under the law, adolescents often resort to backstreet procedures that are unsafe and life-threatening, often because of the medical costs involved.
With roughly 185 abortions a day occurring among adolescent girls, according to the 2019 studies she cited, the crisis of unintended teenage pregnancy is inseparable from the crisis of unsafe termination. Community level information campaigns, school based reproductive health education and accessible public health facilities are the front line of this battle.
The path forward
Moyo said awareness must be raised to close the information gap, warning that difficult and sometimes disappointing approval processes push women toward unsafe and clandestine abortions.
Mundawarara was blunt about the official pathways, calling them time consuming, financially taxing and not purposive in a right to health jurisdiction like Zimbabwe.
They fly in the face of access to justice and are anathema to gender transformative reproductive health.
The activists' message is clear and it is a message of national self reliance: make the lawful pathway work, inform every community, and protect the most vulnerable women of Zimbabwe. The statute exists. What is missing is the will to make it function for the girl in the village, not just the elite in the city. That is a test of whether our independence means anything for the poorest among us.
FAQ
Is abortion legal in Zimbabwe?
Abortion is legal in Zimbabwe only on three grounds under the Termination of Pregnancy Act: risk to the life or physical health of the mother, serious foetal anomaly, and unlawful intercourse such as rape or incest.
How many unsafe abortions happen in Zimbabwe each year?
Studies from 2019 show 219 abortions occur daily in Zimbabwe, about 80 000 that year, with roughly 185 a day among adolescents, according to Isheanesu Chirisa of Women and Law in Southern Africa.
Why do women struggle to access legal abortion in Zimbabwe?
The process requires two doctors, a superintendent's permission and in rape cases a magistrate's certificate, and many women do not know the law exists or where designated facilities are located.