Since the constitution debate started in earnest, the issue of abortion has been one of the so called contentious issues The debate on abortion is always emotive one, and one that many times seem to demonize women, may be its not a wonder that its men(religious pastors and priests mostly ) who are quite vocal in this debate in Kenya today..  Unfortunately they are not in a position to know what it is all about since they have never been pregnant. The argument on the sanctity of life is well and good, but why is the life of the unborn more important than that of the life of those alive? I will be forgive to think, may be it’s because they are women.  One would be persuaded  to believe the religious are concerned about life if they spoke as strongly during other debates on 'sanctity of life' like the sexual offences act etc, since life is not just about breathing, its much more. 
  
All the same to assume that if abortion was made legal women will all go and abort all pregnancies and there will be no future generation is simplistic. Some women will chose to abort whether it is legal or not, others will chose to keep their babies regardless of how they got pregnant, but the issue is will they be safe, or will they lose their lives? The more women go for back street abortion, the more lives we are losing; this should be of concern and focus. 
  
In the current constitution, the issue of abortion is not explicitly mentioned but it is in the penal code, article 158 that states that ‘Any person who, with intent to procure miscarriage of a woman, whether she is or is not with child, unlawfully administers to her or causes her to take any poison or other noxious thing, or uses any force of any kind, or uses any other means whatever, is guilty of a felony and is liable to imprisonment for fourteen years. The ‘unlawful’ has been interpreted by the high court to eliminate when the life of the mother is in danger. As a matter of fact, the first draft by the CoE ( Nov, 2009)  didn’t have the clause on abortion with article 35: 1 & 2 stating that ‘Every person has the right to life’ and ‘A person shall not be arbitrarily deprived of life’ respectively.  The church lobbied for the clause on 26:2 to be introduced stating that life begins at conception (CoE, 2010). It therefore brings to question the argument by the religious who are responsible for presence of the clause in the draft in the first place. The arguments that any loophole in the law is an attempt to legalize abortion on the part of women, gives the impression that women are out looking for ways of getting pregnant and procuring abortion at will. The discussion has failed to address the male factors that contribute to abortion. The debate has therefore suffocated any debates on the situation of women and girls in Kenya as far as reproductive health is concerned.

The debate brought back some memories that I would otherwise have preferred to be locked away. In 2004, I met Njeri (RIP) in Nakuru under quite unique circumstances. A family who were hosting her approached me to accompany them to her home to check why she didn’t report back hence missing school and probably counsel  her considering I was doing work on guidance for youth. A brief background of Njeri, she was 18 year old girl in class 7! ( In Kenya most pupils are in form 4 or have cleared secondary school by 18 years meaning she was schooling with 12 yr olds). She had been rescued by this family from the perpetual poverty that her family was living in Molo. She was engaging in forced commercial sex work and selling in a local  prior to this, child labour. Her family was of paupers, barely making ends meet. This family that I knew had decided to give her a second chance by taking her not only from her home but from the environment. She went back to primary school and for the almost two years that she had been back in school despite being the oldest girl  in her class she had shown leadership and lots of promise.

We set out to Molo to the slum area where her mother lived and we found Njeri sitting in a chair outside the house. She was shocked to see us but made no efforts to stand and offer us seats or anything. (I later learnt this was unlike her, she would not sit when an older person was standing). We asked her why she had not come back and she gave us some long story about how she didn’t have bus fare since she had used the money she had been given to give her mother for medication. All this didn’t make much sense since the foster family used to help her family hence it would have made sense for her to report back and ask for help.

We talked at length and she kept contradicting herself. We made as if to leave and held some discussions with my other friends, the man whose family was fostering her, the woman friend of mine who had asked me to accompany them. Mary my friend commented ‘this girl must have procured an abortion from the look in her eyes she has bled, we need to see how to help her’. We called her and noticed the pain with which she was walking and asked her if all was well and she told us she had injured her leg. We asked her to accompany us so that we take her to hospital for check up and she came up with a long story that made us think may be we were being paranoid. We left her with instructions that she was to come with her mother to Nakuru later on.

Her mother stuck to the story of her injured foot though with time some details changed. On being taken to see a doctor who we had informed to do a thorough check up and treatment she somehow managed to manoeuvre and give some story to the doctor in the private hospital so she was given pain killers and injections for pain. By the fourth day the pain was becoming unbearable but she stuck to her guns and the doctor also felt she was telling the truth. On the fourth day in the evening on taking her back to hospital the doctor gave her a referral for Xray of the leg to assess the cause of the pain.

That was never to be, she passed on that night, and Njeri was no more.

We suspected that she got pregnant when she went home for December holidays and never told anyone in the foster family. That weekend when she had gone home, her mother had helped her procure a backstreet abortion which was of course not successful. I hate to imagine the intensity of the pain she went through. By the time we met her, she just said she was having pains in the leg……and she maintained this till she died four days later. Despite our trying to coax her into saying the real problem, where the pain really was, so that she can access the medical attention, she managed to outsmart the doctor who was treating her to the extent the doctor believed her side of the story didn't check her after pain killers not working and recommended X-ray.

  
 We all know she did this, regardless of the legal implications of the act, abortion is illegal in Kenya. Her concern must have been more of ‘ what people will think’ and considering that the mother was barely able to provide for any of them, living in the slums, no wonder she didn’t think anyone will understand. Her concern was how can she take care of a baby when she can’t take care of herself and her education would come to an end?

We will never know what went through her mind as she imagined how Christian family that had taken her from tatters would think of her, and she never got the chance to know if they would love her unconditionally. Since abortion and even pregnancy out of wedlock is frowned upon she didn’t even mention it.  We never came to know if the father of the unborn baby was a student, a teacher, a villager, a preacher…and this will never be known. She could not access any medical facility so she did what she though best, backstreet, and hoped all will be well.
  
It is more that 5 years ago, but I still remember her, and know that Njeri didn't have to die. But many Njeri's are still dying today, since they don't have choices open for them. And the clergy will continue shouting, demonising women while not looking at the root cause.