“It sparked a national reckoning about women’s health.” That’s how Margaret Giorgio, a senior research scientist at Guttmacher, described the far-reaching impact of a recent study she conducted in Kenya alongside the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), a longtime Guttmacher partner. The project tracked the incidence of abortions in Kenya, including interviews with over 2,000 women who had an abortion in the past five years.
For Giorgio, this type of in-country work is especially powerful, connecting data directly to the country’s laws and health systems. “People will say, ‘I know abortions happen, but not here.' The truth is, it’s something that women all over the world are doing every year, every day.”
Counting abortions, especially when the procedure is restricted, is challenging for researchers. But those counts are essential to making the real experiences of women visible.
The Kenyan study revealed not only how many abortions were taking place in the country, but also who the women were who sought them out. Most were older than 25, married and already had children.
Last year, as Kenyan lawmakers weighed a new tax bill, protests reacting to the rising cost of living erupted around the country. “People in Kenya are feeling a lot of economic strain,” said Giorgio. “It’s too expensive to raise a family.”
In May, the abortion study findings were co-presented by APHRC, Guttmacher and the Kenyan Ministry of Health at a national dissemination event. That night, all four major television networks in Kenya picked up the story. “We were all over the news,” said Giorgio. “It became a viral story.”
