Legal rights to safe abortion: knowledge and attitude of women in North-West Ethiopia toward the current Ethiopian abortion law

- A significant number of women had poor knowledge and a conservative attitude toward the current Ethiopian abortion law.
- Poor knowledge on abortion law was likely to weaken the attitude toward safe abortion.
- The majority of women opposed abortion for pregnant women aged less than 18 years, whereas supported in the case of rape.

ObjectiveTo assess women's knowledge and attitude toward Ethiopian current abortion law.Study designA quantitative, community-based cross-sectional survey.MethodsWomen of reproductive age in three selected lower districts in Bahir Dar, North-West Ethiopia, were included. Multi-stage simple random sampling and simple random sampling were used to select the districts and respondents, respectively. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire comprising questions related to knowledge and attitude toward legal status of abortion and cases where abortion is currently allowed by law in Ethiopia. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the data and multivariable logistic regression computed to assess the magnitude and significance of associations.ResultsOf 845 eligible women selected, 774 (92%) consented to participate and completed the interview. A total of 512 (66%) women were aware of the legal status of the Ethiopian abortion law and their primary sources of information were electronic media such as television and radio (43%) followed by healthcare providers (38.7%). Among women with awareness of the law, 293 (57.2%) were poor in knowledge, 188 (36.7%) fairly knowledgeable, and 31 (6.1%) good in knowledge about the cases where abortion is allowed by law. Of the total 774 women included, 438 (56.5%) hold liberal and 336 (43.5%) conservative attitude toward legalization of abortion. In the multivariable logistic regression, age had a significant association with knowledge, whereas occupation had a significant association with attitude toward the law. Women who had poor knowledge toward the law were more likely to have conservative attitude toward the law (adjusted odds ratio, 0.40; 95% confidence interval, 0.23-0.61).ConclusionThough the Ethiopian criminal code legalized abortion under certain circumstances since 2005, a significant number of women knew little about the law and several protested legalization of abortion. Countries such as Ethiopia with high maternal mortality records need to lift high-impact interventions that would trigger women to understand and exercise their legal rights to safe abortion and other reproductive health securities.