A decade after Nepal legalized abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy, women still report seeking illegal and unsafe abortions. Lack of awareness of the abortion law and stigma drives women to unregistered clinics, leading to health complications and sometimes death.
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by Tara Bhattarai Senior Reporter, Wednesday - February 29, 2012
KATHMANDU, NEPAL – Kalpana Rai, 20, lies in bed No. 301 on the fourth floor of Prasuti Griha Government Maternity Hospital, Nepal’s lone maternity hospital. She was brought to the hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, because of excessive bleeding after obtaining an unsafe abortion in an illegal clinic.
“I didn’t know where to go for an abortion,” says Rai, who has studied up to 10th grade but wasn’t aware abortion was legal in Nepal. “I did it in a rush and am suffering now.”
A dirty, green blanket covers her in the hospital bed, where she receives IV therapy. The loss of blood has left her face pale, and sweat is dripping from her forehead. Her husband, Toran Bahadur Kumal, sits beside her.
The couple met while they were working in Kuwait when Rai was 17. Two years after returning to Kathmandu, they got married. But their families didn’t accept it because it was an intercaste marriage.
Six months after their wedding, Rai got pregnant. But with no support from their families and a dwindling business, they thought it wasn’t a good time to have a child.
The couple decided to have an abortion but didn’t know that they could obtain a safe and legal one in a government-approved clinic. The only information they had was that abortion was a sin, and so they kept it a secret.
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