Can Rwanda’s New Abortion Law Make Access Safer?
Although Rwandan women take up many leadership and economic roles, their reproductive choices are still bound by church and state
Bethany, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, was 20 years old when she first went to a health center to get a pregnancy test. She had missed her period by two months and was alarmed. When the results came back positive, there was no time for a discussion of how it happened, or to cast blame on herself and her boyfriend for failing to use a contraceptive. Bethany was scared and confused, but she and her boyfriend both arrived at the same decision. She needed to get an abortion.
Bethany resides in Rwanda, born shortly after the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis in which nearly a million people were killed and millions more were displaced. Immediately after the genocide, an estimated 70% of the surviving population was female. As a result, women began to take up economic and leadership roles, both within households and outside of them, a power shift they had previously been denied.
While Rwanda now has among the highest female labor participation in the world, other changes have been more gradual. In the years following the genocide, the country has focused heavily on building its…
