"Even though there has been so much that’s been achieved, a lot more needs to be done. Women are still dying, and it’s all unnecessary. Women have a right to healthcare. We have the knowledge, we have the instruments, we have everything to stop women from dying."
Eunice Brookman-Amissah is a Ghanaian former Minister of Health and also served as an Ambassador to the Kingdom of the Netherlands under the Rawlings government. She was the first female vice-president of the Ghana Medical Association.
"I had a patient, at age 14, she walked into my surgery and said the man in the house had asked her to come for an abortion. I said, we don’t do that in this clinic. Monday, we didn’t see her. Tuesday, we didn’t see her on Wednesday."
"That was a totally unacceptable state of affairs,” she said, “given the fact that nobody, absolutely no woman has to die from a totally treatable and manageable cause.”"
"Abortion is the only medical condition that is in the Criminal Code, punishable as an offense. And so that tends to influence your thoughts and beliefs about this.”"
"Therefore, more work needs to be done to get women the services that will prevent them from dying. And we need to increase access to contraception or family planning because unsafe abortions arise out of unwanted pregnancies,"