海角大神

The president鈥檚 voice came booming in through the open window of Rosa Namises鈥� house, crackling over the speakers from the soccer stadium next door.

It was the early 1990s, just years after Namibia鈥檚 independence from South Africa, a time when nearly every speech a politician here gave seemed full of outsized meaning听鈥� like a series of patriotic 鈥渉ow to鈥� guides on building a new country.听

That day in her kitchen, Ms. Namises heard President Sam Nujoma explain that Namibia was a small nation. Too small, in fact. It simply didn鈥檛 have enough people.

鈥淎nd so he said to the men听鈥� it鈥檚 your patriotic duty to have children,鈥� she remembers. For Namises, an activist who hoped independence would mean the chance to reform Namibia鈥檚 strict abortion law, it was confirmation of something she鈥檇 long feared.

Now, if she advocated for abortion rights, it wouldn鈥檛 just be an affront to social norms. 鈥淚t would be seen as unpatriotic,鈥� she says.

A quarter-century ago, Namibia鈥� a Texas-sized slab of desert on the southwest coast of Africa 鈥� was at a monumental turning point. It had finally shaken off white rule and found itself, for the first time in its history, free to choose what kind of country it wanted to be.

But it did so in the shadow of a dark history. For the better part of the century, Namibia had been a colony of white-ruled South Africa. And when it became independent, it still had on the books many of the old apartheid government鈥檚 laws. Among them was听an almost total prohibition on abortion 鈥� passed in the mid-1970s amid rising anxiety that the minority white population wasn鈥檛 having children fast enough to stop itself from being vastly outnumbered by its black underclass.

Like many African countries, Namibia faced a difficult dilemma when it came to colonial legislation, like its abortion law. For many women鈥檚 health advocates, it was simply one more听inheritance from a racist government, contributing to high maternal death rates and unwanted births. But whatever its history, the prohibition also mirrored the views of many Namibians听鈥� abortion was a sin. It shouldn鈥檛 be allowed.

Old laws, new societies

Around the continent, many colonial laws remain in force, and how to deal with them has become a kind of societal reckoning. In some countries, laws鈥櫶齩rigins have inspired contemporary pushes for their removal. Nineteen African countries, for instance, no longer have the death penalty. Many who pushed for it to be overturned argued that it was a colonial tool of intimidation and suppression that had no place in their free society.

But in other cases, these laws听鈥� and the colonial governments who passed them听鈥� helped set social norms that persist to the present day.听Old British penal codes criminalizing homosexuality, for instance, have been used to suppress LGBT activism in several former African colonies听鈥� notably Uganda.

When apartheid crumbled in the early 1990s, South African feminists successfully pushed to have the abortion law changed, arguing that it was part of a history of oppression.

But in neighboring Namibia, where conservative 海角大神 social norms dominated the new government, the old law remained intact, as many similar ones do across the continent. Of听the 54 countries in Africa today, only听South Africa, Zambia, Mozambique, Cape Verde, and Tunisia allow abortion in a broad range of circumstances, and the region听has the highest number of abortion-related deaths in the world. Namibia allows abortion in cases of rape, incest, or when a pregnancy endangers the life of mother or child.

In both Namibia and South Africa, the limits were part of a broader web of restrictions on black women. Apartheid laws rigidly patrolled where black South Africans and Namibians could live and work. When African communities鈥� neighborhoods became desirable to the white population, they were often forcibly relocated听鈥� usually to desolate, segregated areas far from jobs and amenities.

In the process, families were often separated, meaning many young women missed the lessons about traditional birth control they鈥檇 heard from mothers and grandmothers, says Susanne Klausen, a professor at Carleton University in Canada and the author of 鈥淎bortion Under Apartheid.鈥� (Today, only half of Namibian women use modern contraceptives.)听Beginning in the 1950s and 鈥�60s, she points out, the number of unwanted and out-of-wedlock pregnancies rose rapidly.

Those women, meanwhile, were often desperate to end those pregnancies. So as apartheid tightened, the number of illegal abortions ticked upward. In the 1960s, activists estimated about 100,000 South African women听鈥� most of them black听鈥� were illicitly ending a pregnancy each year. By the 1970s, when the South African government passed the current abortion law, that figure had jumped to a quarter million, according to Klausen鈥檚 research.

At the time, Namises worked as a nurse in the obstetrics and gynecology ward of a large public hospital in Windhoek, the Namibian capital. Every week, she says, she saw women arrive in the hospital near death after attempting to perform their own abortions听鈥� or after paying an 鈥渉erbalist鈥� to do it for them. The women always told her the same story听鈥� that they鈥檇 had a miscarriage听鈥� and she never asked for more details.

But the more she saw, the angrier she grew.

鈥淭his law was never based at all on our culture or experiences,鈥� says Namises. 鈥淚t was always something imposed on us.鈥�

Current statistics on abortion in Namibia are difficult to come by.听However, data from the Namibian Ministry of Health, though based on a sample size of only 60 women, suggests that up to 16 percent of maternal deaths are caused by abortions, and thousands of women check themselves into hospitals each year for 鈥渟pontaneous abortions鈥澨�鈥� a term that includes both accidental and purposeful miscarriages. Continent-wide, about 9 percent of maternal deaths each year are attributable to unsafe abortion, and some 1.6 million women are treated annually for complications from the procedure.

Charged debate

Loosening abortion restrictions, however, remains highly controversial. In an overwhelmingly 海角大神 country, many Namibians 鈥� black and white 鈥� consider abortion a sin.

鈥淣amibia is at its core a very religious nation, and I think for government there was and is quite a lot of weight attached to the church鈥檚 views鈥� on social issues like abortion, says Clem Marais, the general secretary of the Dutch Reformed Church in Namibia.

But the abortion law, established under the 1970s-era apartheid government, was also meant to serve a very different purpose: white rule.

鈥淭he government saw a moral crisis if white women kept aborting the next generation of the white race,鈥� Ms. Klausen says. 鈥淭here was a real panic there.鈥�

Since the late 1950s, indeed, South African legislators had been treating the white birth rate as a matter of survival, arguing that white control depended upon 鈥渢heir numbers,鈥� as one MP quoted in 鈥淎bortion Under Apartheid鈥澨齪ut it. 鈥淲e shall as a first priority seek to increase our white population.鈥澨鼿aving children was framed as the patriotic duty of white families 鈥� just as it was for black families in Namibia, three decades later.听听

Whether or not black women were having abortions was seen as far less consequential to the apartheid government, except in public health costs, Klausen says. When apartheid fell apart, many feminists saw an opening 鈥� considering its origins, they reasoned, so who would want to keep it around?听

But many post-colonial governments, including Namibia鈥檚, haven鈥檛 seen it that way. Instead, taking a firmly conservative stance on social issues like abortion, homosexuality, and the death penalty has become a way to assert independence from a 鈥減ermissive鈥� West.

鈥淣amibians don鈥檛 want abortion,鈥� then-Health Minister Libertina Amathila said amid a debate about the procedure in 1999. "Once we have consulted we are supposed to follow the feeling of the people.鈥�

But for many women鈥檚 health advocates, that explanation leaves a tragic problem unaddressed. Namibian newspapers regularly carry stories of 鈥渂aby dumping,鈥� or mothers throwing away newborns. And the听fact that so many Namibians are seeking abortions illegally shows how necessary reform has become, Namises argues.

鈥淎t the moment we are frozen,鈥� she says. 鈥淥ur way of thinking about this is outdated, but we haven鈥檛 yet found a way to take it on and change it.鈥澨�

This reporting was supported by a Taco Kuiper grant for South African investigative journalism.