THE NIGERIAN CRIMINAL CODE (1990) ON ABORTION
This applies to the southern states
228. Any person
who, with intent to procure miscarriage of a woman whether she is or is not
with child, unlawfully administers to her or causes her to take any poison or
other noxious thing, or uses any force of any kind, or uses any
other means
whatever, is guilty of a felony, and is liable to imprisonment for fourteen
years.
229. Any woman
who, with intent to procure her own miscarriage, whether she is or is not with
child, unlawfully administers to herself any poison or other noxious thing, or
uses any force of any kind, or uses any other means whatever, or permits any
such thing or means to be administered or used to her, is guilty of a felony,
and is liable to imprisonment for seven years.
230. Any person who unlawfully supplies to or procures
for any person anything whatever, knowing that it is intended to he unlawfully
used to procure the miscarriage of a woman, whether she is or is not with child,
is guilty of a felony, and is liable to imprisonment for three years.
The offender cannot be arrested without warrant.
The penal code which applies to the northern states, is
similar to the criminal code, but carries a fourteen-year jail term for the
woman.
WHEN IS IT LEGAL?
In the northern states, the penal code allows an abortion
to be performed if the life of the woman is in danger.
In the Southern states, the holding
of Rex v. Bourne is applied, which allows abortions to be performed for
physical and mental health reasons.
Aleck William Bourne (4 June 1886 – 30 December 1974)
was a prominent British gynecologist and writer, known for his 1938 trial, a
landmark case, for performing an illegal abortion on a 14-year-old girl rape
victim.
On 14 June 1938, Bourne was arrested
after performing an operation without fee at St Mary's Hospital to terminate
the pregnancy of six weeks of a 14-year-old girl who had been sexually
assaulted by five off-duty British soldiers, officers in the Royal Horse Guards,
in a London barracks. She asked at St. Thomas' Hospital, but was sent away on
the grounds that she might be carrying a future prime minister. Tried at the Central
Criminal Court in July 1938, Bourne was acquitted on charges of procuring
abortion as his actions were later defended by Lancet as "an example of
disinterested conduct in consonance with the highest traditions of the
profession".
His defense had been based on the Infant
Life (Preservation) Act 1929 in which, under British law, the only recognized
justification for the termination of a pregnancy was if the life of the woman
was in danger. His defense was that the inevitable subsequent emotional and
psychological trauma that the girl would experience would be a risk to her
life. If the court recognized this to be a legitimate risk then it would fall
under the exceptions to abortions of the Infant life (preservation) act, which
they did.
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