In Namibia's abortion debate, echoes of a repressive history
Activists such as Rosa Namises see the nation's abortion law as an inheritance from a racist government—one that contributes to high maternal death rates.
Rosa Namises in 2009 in Windhoek, Namibia. Some rights reserved by The Advocacy Project.
(The Christian Science Monitor) The president’s voice came booming in through the open window of Rosa Namises’s house, crackling over the loudspeakers from the soccer stadium next door.
It was the early 1990s, just years after Namibia’s independence from South Africa, a time when nearly every speech a politician gave was like a series of patriotic how-to guides on building a new country. Namises recalls President Sam Nujoma explaining that Namibia was a small nation. Too small, in fact. It simply didn’t have enough people.
“It’s your patriotic duty to have children,” she remembers him saying.
