HOW ABOUT STEPPING INTO OUR SHOES?

Media has been an effective tool for promoting women’s sexual and reproductive health rights and reducing unsafe abortion in Nepal. It has the power to foster positive changes in lives of millions of women. However, to my disbelief, the rising stigmatization of abortion services as being dangerous procedure by the popular national media houses in Nepal has been a major factor in fueling individual, family and societal stigma in the country..

Recently, an article titled “Abortion at a young age” with a picture of a distressed pregnant woman was published in a national daily newspaper, which was shared 1900 times online. The article solely focused on high number of young women accessing abortion, rather than analyzing the reasons behind why unwanted pregnancies occur and the reasons for its termination. Not a single sentence in the article focused on the role of men in causing an unwanted pregnancy. This wasn't surprising as majority of the sentences depicted deeply entrenched patriarchal mindset of the writer who tried to ignored reproductive health and rights of women and young girls guaranteed by the constitution and presumed women to just have reproductive roles.

Another article published in a popular online news portal was titled “The scary reality of abortion in Nepal”. The article which was shared 9950 times basically stressed on following statements, among which majority were baseless assumption;

Assumption: Among the abortion service users, number of high school girls and unmarried is the highest. 
Reality: National statistics have shown that majority of the service seeker are the married reproductive aged women who have had one or two children and had history contraceptive failure. 

Assumption: Abortion causes infertility in future. 
Reality: Unsafe abortion can cause infertility in future. 

Assumption: Abortion risks women life to risk. 
Reality: Safe abortion is 10 times safer than the normal child birth

....and many more!

I would also like to share some of the responses of the readers in the comment section, which are as follows;

Male 1: “Ban abortion!”

Male 2: “Abortion service needs to be made very costly and only expensive government health institutions should provide it. An orphanage must be established for those people who do not want to raise their unwanted child so that people can come and leave their unwanted children”

Male 3: “Change the age of marriage. Women must be married off at an early age”

Male 4: “These days every teenager knows about sex without any formal education. ”

Male 5: “Go on women, make a misuse of women rights like this”

Male 6: “There must be solid rules for banning sex before marriage”

Male 7: “Before marriage SEX is forbidden. An abortion is totally wrong instead of giving birth to a child. Just think of being an aborted child, if your mom had an abortion before your birth you would not be here in this earth. So, doing abortion is forbidden.”

Rather than providing positive, factual and in-depth information, both news articles were giving incomplete and misleading information to the public. The readers were also making a moral judgment of women for having an abortion instead of empathizing them for the reasons behind it. 

There is a misleading notion among general public spread by the polarized media houses that women who have an abortion and women who have children are totally different types of women whereas the fact is these might be the same women at different stage of their life. Women have abortion for myriad of reasons, whatever the reason be, it is her life and her story that she chooses to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. No one can better decide as what is best for her and her body than women herself. However, the prevalent patriarchal system in the Nepalese society limits women’s decision making role in the family.  Women do not get to choose or decide their reproductive need. They are usually entitled to their husband or family member’s opinion rather.  How are we in a position to decide what a woman should or should not do until and unless we have been through the same?

Nevertheless, the power of media in fostering positive changes in lives of millions of women is well documented across the globe and it stands true in the case of Nepal as well. It was the role of media back then when we were convincing policy makers through years of advocacy, lobbying and campaigning, for prioritizing women’s health and well-being by legalizing abortion in 2002 A.D. So, in the present context, the responsibilities of media as well as the concerned stake holders have increased manifolds in reducing the growing stigma and van guarding the rights which were guaranteed 14 years ago. We cannot slide back when we are at the crux of moment full of promises to achieve universal access to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights by 2030. There should be sustained coordination among multi-stakeholders to project dreams into ground realities for changing the lives of millions of women and girls across the country. All of these start with positive media role in promoting women’s health.

So, isn’t it time all of us especially media personnel step into the shoes of those women who went through abortions for various reasons for a change and understand the realities of abortion, make it stigma free and establish it as women human right?