Call for safe abortions

POSTERS: ACTIVISTS REPLACE PAPERS DEEMED ILLEGAL WITH SAFE ONES. Dangers of illegal abortions highlighted during march to Constitutional Hill.

- Jabulile Mbatha

Health activists, feminist and civil society groups at the weekend marched to the Constitutional Hill, replacing illegal abortion posters with safe ones.

But that came a little too late for Gaopalelwe Phalaetsile who used information from those flyers to get her backdoor abortion years ago.

Today she is an activist and founder of an organisation called Abortion Support South Africa.

She said: "I became an activist because I believed it is unconstitutional that women don't have access to safe abortions when that right is protected by law." Aged 19 and in her first year at the University of Witwatersrand, she was raped by her boyfriend.

"Being in my first year, I did not want to keep the baby. A friend told me to go to a clinic. However, they told me about a waiting list meaning I would have to go back in a few months. I could not wait so I left," she said.