Ojukwu says reform should address rape, incest, severe fetal abnormalities
The Executive Secretary and Chief Executive Officer of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Chief (Dr.) Anthony Okechukwu Ojukwu, has called on the National Assembly to complete Nigeria’s legal framework on abortion care, saying the law should recognise specific circumstances in which women require medically justified access to abortion.
Ojukwu said the proposed reform should not be interpreted as a call for abortion on demand but as a tightly bounded expansion of lawful care aimed at protecting the rights to life, health and survival of Nigerian women.
Speaking at a stakeholders’ meeting convened under the Unfinished Campaign Project, Ojukwu anchored the discussion on the dignity of the Nigerian citizen and the responsibility of the state to protect fundamental human rights, particularly where women face life-threatening or medically challenging pregnancies.
“We are asking for the law to recognise the realities of rape, incest, severe fetal abnormalities and the mental health of women,” he said.
The NHRC chief executive stressed that the objective of the proposed reform was not to promote abortion on demand but to ensure that women confronted with medically justifiable crises are not forced into unsafe or unlawful pathways because of gaps or restrictions in the existing legal framework.
“This is not about abortion on demand, it is about saving lives,” Ojukwu said.
He added that the law should ensure that women facing medically justifiable circumstances can obtain appropriate care from trained health professionals without being forced into the shadows.
The call comes amid continuing discussions around Nigeria’s restrictive abortion laws and their implications for women’s reproductive health, maternal mortality and access to healthcare. The meeting focused on the need for the National Assembly to address what organisers described as gaps in the country’s legal framework for abortion care as part of broader efforts to reduce preventable maternal deaths.
‘Too many women still dying from preventable causes’
The Regional Director of WARDC and Convener of the Unfinished Campaign, Emmanuella Azu, said the campaign’s position was informed by years of documenting the experiences of women and families affected when timely, safe and lawful reproductive healthcare is unavailable.
Azu said the campaign had worked with families to understand the consequences of women being unable to obtain appropriate care when confronted with pregnancy-related crises.
“We are here today because of a simple truth. Too many Nigerian women are still dying from causes we know how to prevent,” she said.
According to her, Nigeria continues to carry one of the world’s highest maternal mortality burdens, while unsafe abortion remains a significant and preventable contributor to maternal deaths.
Azu stressed that behind the statistics were individual women whose lives had been interrupted, describing them as daughters, mothers, sisters, wives, students and workers with futures that could have continued.
“Each of these deaths is a daughter, a mother, a sister, a wife, a student, a worker. Each was a life with a future that was interrupted,” she said.
She said the campaign was therefore seeking an evidence-based and carefully defined reform of Nigeria’s abortion laws, rather than unrestricted access to abortion.
Azu called on the National Assembly to amend the Penal Code and Criminal Code to allow trained healthcare providers to provide timely and lawful abortion care in a limited number of clearly defined and medically justified circumstances.
She identified rape, incest and severe fetal abnormalities among the circumstances that should be recognised under the proposed reform.
The convener said the proposed changes were intended to ensure that women facing serious reproductive-health crises could access appropriate medical care within a clear legal framework, rather than being pushed towards unsafe alternatives.
The stakeholders’ deliberations come against the backdrop of renewed calls for Nigeria to examine the relationship between its abortion laws, maternal mortality and women’s access to safe reproductive healthcare, with advocates urging lawmakers to consider reforms that they say would protect women’s lives while maintaining clearly defined legal and medical safeguards.
