‘Make abortion legal’ - Women activists

Jul 29, 2008

APPROVE the Maputo Protocol to allow women carry out abortion in case of rape, women rights activists have told the Government.

By Francis Emorut

APPROVE the Maputo Protocol to allow women carry out abortion in case of rape, women rights activists have told the Government.

“The Attorney General should give his legal opinion before Cabinet approves it so that the process is not delayed,” said Irene Ovonji, a member of the National Taskforce on the Maputo Protocol.

The body was set up in October 2007 to lobby for the ratification and domestication of the protocol in Uganda.
It comprises 15 civil society organisations.

In Article 14, the protocol says: “States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to protect the reproductive rights of women by authorising medical abortion in cases of sexual assault, rape, incest and where the continued pregnancy endangers the mental and physical health of the mother or the life of the foetus.”

Ovonji, who was yesterday speaking in Kampala, said the Government signed the protocol in December 2003 but had not ratified it to date.

The executive director of Akina-Mama Wa Afrika, Solome Kimbugwe, urged the Government to expedite the process of ratification so that the women can enjoy their sexual and reproductive rights.
Religious groups oppose the legalisation of abortion under whatever circumstance.

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