Abortion in Nepal

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/opinion/abortion-in-nepal.html

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To the Editor:

“Child, Bride, Mother: Nepal,” by Stephanie Sinclair (Sunday Review, April 24), highlights how cultural traditions often determine a woman’s journey in life. One of the troubling moments in the story of Niruta, married at 14, was her unsafe abortion after she realized that she was pregnant with a third child.

She survived and eventually delivered a baby girl. But the pain and suffering of her attempted abortion were needless because she could have gone to any government clinic to have a safe abortion.

Abortion has been legal in Nepal since 2002, and post-abortion care has been successfully integrated into hospitals. But that does not mean that women can easily obtain safe abortion services. The barriers are many, and women are often stigmatized for the decision to end a pregnancy.

If Niruta had had access to a clinic, or if she had known that abortion was legal, she could have safely terminated an unwanted pregnancy and been given the choice to use contraceptives. It would have given her some control over her reproductive health.

ANU KUMAR

Chapel Hill, N.C.

The writer is chief strategy and development officer at Ipas, an international nonprofit that works to prevent death and injuries from unsafe abortion.