This talk is by Karen Marie Ingeborg Moland, University of Bergen

Legal frameworks are vital instruments for securing the right to health, but the connection between law, health policy and access to health services is ambiguous and critically dependent on the socio-economic and political context of implementation. National abortion laws are commonly categorized along a permissive-restrictive spectrum. It is well established that restrictive abortion laws do not reduce abortion incidence, but heavily contributes to unsafe abortions. The presentation explores the dynamics between national abortion laws, abortion policy and access to safe abortion services in the different legal contexts of Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia. Drawing upon the concept of reproductive governance, Karen Marie will discuss political rationalities directed at reproduction, and the mechanisms that intervene in the relationship between abortion laws and access to safe abortion services.

Additional educational resources

Links to further readings:

• Morgan LM, Roberts EF: Reproductive governance in Latin America (access it through your university login).
  • Also check the issue: Morgan LM, Roberts EF: Reproductive governance in Latin America. Anthroplogy Med. 2012; 19(2): 241-54. Morgan LM: Reproductive governance redux. Medical Anthropology,  Cross-Cultural Studies in Health and Illness. Volume 38, 2019 - Issue 2.
• Reproductive health and the politics of abortion in Ethiopia, Zambia, and Tanzania.  Link to the thematic series in International Journal of Equity in Health 2019: https://www.biomedcentral.com/collections/abortionpolitics
• Haaland MES, Haukanes H, Zulu JM, Moland KM, Blystad A. Silent politics and unknown numbers: Rural health bureaucrats and Zambian abortion policy. Soc Sci Med. 2020;251:112909. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953620301283
• Haaland MES, Zulu JM, Moland KM, Haukanes H, Blystad A. When abortion becomes public - Everyday politics of reproduction in rural Zambia. Soc Sci Med. 2020;265:113502. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953620307218
• Solheim IH, Moland KM, Kahabuka C, Pembe AB, Blystad A. Beyond the law: Misoprostol and medical abortion in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Soc Sci Med. 2020;245:112676. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953619306719

Discussion / exercise

• Focusing on reproductive health, select a topic and country, and discuss the dynamics between legal frameworks and access to health services.

• Discuss abortion activism in view of the reproductive governance (Morgan and Roberts 2012), for example with reference to current scenarios in Argentina, Poland and South Africa

About Nordic Global Health Talks

Nordic Global Health Talks is a monthly webinar series about global health research at Nordic universities, hosted by the Nordic Network on Global Health. It is free and open to everyone interested in knowing more about Nordic global health research, education and collaborative projects.

Read more and find the programme here.