African governments should let women choose - AU

African governments must face up to the reality of abortion and give women the right to decide, the African Union (AU) said on Wednesday. Commissioner for Social Affairs Bience Gawanas said ignoring the issue and outlawing abortion drives it underground, resulting in thousands of deaths each year. "People should have the right to choose," she told journalists at a press conference at the general assembly of the African Population Commission. "We are faced with a situation. Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, abortions are taking place." Abortion is illegal in almost all African countries, according to the AU, which describes complications from unsafe abortions as a major public health problem. The World Health Organization said that approximately 15 percent of pregnancies in Africa result in abortions. It estimates that five million unsafe abortions are carried out on the continent each year, resulting in the death of 34,000 women. "The problem is that [abortions are] done under unhygienic circumstances, endangering the lives of people," Gawanas added. "Governments will have to face the reality that whether you are legalising or not, abortion is an issue that takes the lives of many women." According to the AU, many women are forced into backstreet abortions, which often go wrong. "Effective post abortion care also reduces maternal mortality rates by as much as one-fifth in many low-income countries," the AU’s State of the African Population Report 2004 noted. "We promote reproductive health and rights of people, and we are saying that within that context people must be given the right to decide," Gawanas explained. "Obviously as a continental organisation we advocate - but at the end of the day it is still up to individual states to decide as to how they want to handle abortion." The African Population Commission is holding a two-day conference in Addis Ababa on the impact of population growth on the 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Gawanas said that efforts needed to be "doubled or tripled" to meet the MDGs, especially in the areas of population and reproductive health.