In the early 1990s, Eunice Brookman-Amissah was known to spend hours outside Ghana’s Ministry of Health, trying to hand over abortion kits made by Ipas. Few officials would say the word abortion in a meeting, let alone defend the practice.
Three decades later, a Swedish foundation gave her a prize for it. Right Livelihood announced on September 28, 2023, that the Ghanaian physician was one of its four laureates for the year, citing her “for pioneering discussions on women’s reproductive rights in Africa, paving the way for liberalised abortion laws and improved safe abortion access.” The catch: hers is an honorary award, and it carries no cash prize. The laureates were due to be honoured at a televised presentation in Stockholm on Wednesday, November 29.
From opponent to advocate
She did not start out on this side of the argument. Brookman-Amissah, who studied at Achimota School and the University of Ghana Medical School, began her career as a doctor in the UK and Ghana. Her upbringing was conservative, and she opposed abortion. Then one of her regular patients, a 14-year-old girl, died from an unsafe abortion after Brookman-Amissah denied her care. From that point, she has said, her focus changed.
The jobs that followed gave her access. She served as Ghana’s Minister of Health from 1996 to 1998, then as ambassador to the Netherlands until 2001. In 2001 she became Ipas’s Vice President for Africa, a post she held until she retired from the organisation in 2014. From Nairobi she ran the Ipas Africa Alliance for Women’s Reproductive Health and Rights.
The mechanics of reform
The method was slow. Brookman-Amissah spent years briefing government officials, lawyers, judges, health workers, journalists, religious leaders and young people, building a coalition one meeting at a time. Right Livelihood says that work contributed to law reform in Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Benin, Eswatini and Kenya, and to better enforcement of existing abortion laws in Ghana, Zambia, Malawi, Senegal and Mauritius.
The changes on the books differ. Abortion is now legal up to 12 weeks in Mozambique and Benin. Sierra Leone overturned a colonial-era law that made it a crime. Eswatini permits it to save a woman’s life and protect her health, and Kenya widened the grounds for legal abortion.
She also pressed the institutions. At a 2003 conference she convened for African policymakers, the World Health Organisation unveiled its first technical and policy guidelines on safe abortion. In 2014, after talks involving Brookman-Amissah, Ipas and African midwives, the International Confederation of Midwives acknowledged the role of midwives in providing safe abortion care.
The foundation credits her work with a 40 per cent drop in abortion-related deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa since 2000. The region still carries the heaviest burden: 6.2 million unsafe abortions a year, and 185 maternal deaths per 100,000 abortions. Right Livelihood also points to US funding rules. The “Global Gag Rule” withholds American aid from groups that provide or discuss abortion, even where it is legal, and the foundation says its chilling effect on health ministries still limits access when the rule is not in force.
Threats
The work was not safe. In 2006, the US-based group Human Life International called for her to be eliminated, and she needed constant security at home, in her office and while travelling. In 2016 an anonymous caller told her he had been hired to assassinate her.
“It is an honour to have my work, and my colleagues’ work across Africa, recognised,” she said after the announcement. “I am grateful that it will bring awareness to the issue of unsafe abortions, which, even in the 21st century, remains a contentious topic.”
Ole von Uexkull, Right Livelihood’s executive director, called her “a legend and reference point” and said her 30 years of advocacy “helped to move the discussion about abortion from taboo into the healthcare arena.” She still consults and trains younger reproductive-rights advocates. The other 2023 laureates are Mother Nature Cambodia, SOS Mediterranee and Phyllis Omido of Kenya.
Sources
- Eunice Brookman-Amissah – Right Livelihood
- Eunice Brookman-Amissah honoured with Right Livelihood Award for transforming safe abortion access in Africa – Right Livelihood
- Dr. Eunice Brookman-Amissah, longtime Ipas leader and abortion rights advocate, receives prestigious Right Livelihood Award
Sources
- Eunice Brookman-Amissah – Right Livelihood
- Eunice Brookman-Amissah honoured with Right Livelihood Award…
