Who’s “Right” is it?
Adolescent wellbeing and bodily autonomy is one of the most sensitive and least openly discussed sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR) issues in Nigeria. Data has shown that unsafe abortion accounts for up to 10-40% of maternal deaths in Nigeria, making it the second largest cause of maternal mortality while about 212,000 women out of 2 million annually get treated for complications from resulting from unsafe termination of pregnnacies. For young women and adolescent girls, the combining factors of restrictive law, social and religious disapproval, and limited access to accurate information creates a situation in which many pregnancies are ended secretly and under unsafe conditions. This research brings together available evidence on the legal framework governing termination of pregnancy in Nigeria, the moral and religious debates that shape public attitudes, the state of access to information for young women, and the work being done by Nigerian organisations to document and respond to the problem. It also reviews Nigeria’s obligations under the Maputo Protocol, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and the role of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in supporting the country’s SRHR commitments.
Legalizing Autonomy
Nigeria does not have a single national abortion law. Instead, the country operates under two parallel criminal law systems left over from the colonial era. The Criminal Code Act which applies in the Southern States, and the Penal Code Act which applies in the Northern States, with slight variations shaped by the influence of Sharia law in parts of the North. It is worthy to note that the National Assembly has positioned 2 distinct bills before the floor of the house that speaks to termination of pregnancy rights in line with the criminal code, however, as at the time of this article, we are yet to assess the finalised provisions from the Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters to ascertain the core submissions and provisions therein. Some States are utilising the STOP Guidelines (Safe Termination of Pregnancy) with support from State Assemblies legislating the bills. This is a welcome shift to reducing the incidences of mortality rates and avoidable health issues that occurs during the process of unsafe pregnancy termination processes.
The Criminal Code (Southern States)
Under the Criminal Code, Section 228 makes it a felony for any person to intentionally cause a woman to miscarry, whether or not she is actually pregnant, with a penalty of up to fourteen years imprisonment. Section 229 criminalizes the woman herself if she attempts to terminate her own pregnancy or consents to someone else doing so, carrying a penalty of up to seven years imprisonment. Section 230 criminalizes the supply of drugs or instruments intended to procure a miscarriage, punishable by up to three years imprisonment. Section 297 provides a narrow defence for surgical operations performed in good faith to preserve the life of the mother.
The Penal Code (Northern States)
The Penal Code contains parallel provisions in Sections 232, 233 and 234 that prescribes imprisonment, fines, or both. Unlike the Criminal Code, Section 236(2) of the Penal Code explicitly permits termination of pregnancy where it is necessary to save the life of the pregnant woman which gives northern states a clearer statutory life exception than exists in the south, where the life-saving exception has instead developed through medical practice and limited case law rather than express statutory text.
The Nuances of Jurisprudence
In practice, both codes are read as permitting termination of pregnancy only where continuing the pregnancy threatens the woman’s life. What counts as a qualifying threat is not clearly defined in the statutes themselves. Conditions such as ectopic pregnancy, severe pre-eclampsia, eclampsia and advanced cancer diagnosed during pregnancy are generally accepted in medical practice as falling within the exception, and there is some indication that judicial and medical interpretation has extended to cases where continuing a pregnancy poses a serious risk to a woman’s mental health, although this remains contested and inconsistently applied.
A major recent development came in June 2025, when the Federal High Court in Abuja ruled that an unwanted pregnancy resulting from rape, incest or other sexual violence constitutes a violation of the rights of women and girls. This was reported as the first time a Nigerian superior court had recognized that pregnancy arising from sexual violence harms both a woman’s physical health and her mental wellbeing, and it is regarded by reproductive rights lawyers as an important legal precedent, even though it has not changed the underlying statutory text.
Outside the the 2025 ruling, sexual violence related exceptions, Nigeria’s abortion law does not accommodate termination on grounds such as socioeconomic hardship, fetal impairment, or simply a woman’s own decision about her pregnancy. Commentators have long argued that this framework, does not reflect the realities faced by women and disproportionately harms those who cannot access safe, discreet, or well-resourced private care.
Moral and Religious Considerations
Nigeria is roughly divided between a Christian majority in the south and a Muslim majority in the north, with a more even mix in the Middle Belt. Religious teaching strongly shapes public attitudes toward termination of pregnancy in both regions, though the picture is more varied than it first appears.
Mainstream Christian teaching in Nigeria, across Catholic and most Protestant traditions, generally treats termination of pregnancy as morally wrong except in the narrowest circumstances, framing it as a violation of the sanctity of life from conception. At the same time, research on pastoral care elsewhere shows that religious leaders often hold more nuanced private views than their public doctrinal position suggests, emphasizing compassion and support for women facing crisis pregnancies even while not condoning termination itself. Some global Christian voices, including groups such as Catholics for Choice, argue that the same faith traditions support reproductive decision making as a matter of conscience and social justice, although this view has limited visible presence in Nigerian religious discourse.
Islamic jurisprudence does not speak with one voice on termination of pregnancy. Most schools of thought consider it forbidden after the point of ensoulment, generally held to occur at 120 days of gestation, after which termination is treated as equivalent to taking a life except where the mother’s life is at risk. Before this point, several schools permit termination for a valid reason, such as a serious and untreatable fetal condition. This creates a degree of flexibility that is not always reflected in how strictly the issue is treated at the community level in northern Nigeria.
Because religious leaders carry considerable moral authority in Nigerian communities, their messaging affects far more than beliefs about termination itself. Research on family planning uptake in Nigeria has found that exposure to supportive reproductive health messaging from religious leaders is associated with higher use of modern contraception, suggesting that engaging faith leaders constructively could also shift attitudes toward termination, stigma, and post termination care, rather than treating religious communities purely as a source of opposition.
The Choice Implication
Beyond formal doctrine, moral disapproval translates into social stigma that shapes where and how young women seek help. Surveys of secondary school and university students in different parts of Nigeria have found that avoiding shame associated with an unwanted pregnancy, alongside wanting to remain in school and feeling too young to have a child, are commonly cited reasons for choosing termination, often pursued in secrecy rather than through safe medical channels precisely because of the fear of moral judgment from family, school authorities, or religious community members.
A recurring theme across the available evidence is that young Nigerian women frequently lack accurate, accessible information about safe methods of pregnancy termination and about their own legal situation, and this gap in knowledge, more than the law itself, appears to drive many toward dangerous methods.
A study comparing knowledge of recommended termination methods among reproductive age women in Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo found that a lack of accurate knowledge about safe methods is a commonly cited barrier, pushing women toward unsafe alternatives, and that close female friendships are an important, though imperfect, informal channel through which such knowledge circulates in the absence of reliable formal sources.
In one study of secondary school girls in south south Nigeria, the overwhelming majority of respondents said they had heard of termination of pregnancy, yet the reasons given for pursuing it, remaining in school, being too young, and avoiding stigma, point to decisions made under pressure and often without proper medical guidance, since safe formal services are largely unavailable to them given the restrictive law.
The Data Implication
National level research indicates that most terminations in Nigeria are unsafe. A widely cited national study found that a large majority of terminations reported by both respondents and their close confidantes were classified as the most unsafe category, with women aged 15 to 19, women with no formal schooling, and the poorest women significantly more likely to have experienced the least safe procedures. This pattern strongly suggests that safety is closely tied to a woman’s access to money, education, and networks that carry reliable information, rather than to age or desire for termination alone.
Separate analysis of Demographic and Health Survey data from 2003 to 2018 found that women living in communities with higher contraceptive use had notably higher odds of pregnancy termination compared with women in lower contraceptive use communities, and that sexual activity before age 15 and being married were both associated with increased odds of termination among women aged 15 to 24. This points to a complex relationship between contraceptive access, information, and termination that resists simple explanation.
The Age of Information Accessibility
In the absence of comprehensive sexuality education in most schools and open conversation within families, many young Nigerian women rely on peers, informal networks, patent medicine vendors, and increasingly the internet and social media for information about pregnancy termination, sources that vary widely in accuracy and often carry their own moral judgment or commercial motive. Organisations working in this space consistently identify the expansion of comprehensive sexuality education and youth friendly health information as a central unmet need.
The Future of Wellbeing
Bodily autonomy sits at the intersection of a restrictive and largely unreformed legal system, a religious and moral landscape that is more varied than its public face suggests, and a persistent gap in access to accurate information. Nigeria’s ratification of the Maputo Protocol and CEDAW, together with its partnership with UNFPA, commits it to standards that its domestic law does not yet meet. The evidence reviewed here suggests that the greatest immediate harm falls on the youngest, poorest, and least educated women, who are most likely to resort to unsafe methods. This creates a clear and well evidenced basis for HEIR Women Hub’s continued advocacy on this issue, and there is an existing base of Nigerian and International research and organisational partners to build on.
References
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