How does a lack of access to reproductive health care stall economic development?
Early pregnancies undermine girls’ schooling, health and aspirations. Increasingly, girls aspire to attend and finish secondary school. Without sufficient schooling, women find it harder to improve their economic and social status. For many teenage girls, childbirth and child rearing become virtually insurmountable obstacles to school attendance and advancement. If faced with unwanted pregnancies, teenagers often resort to self-induced abortions or use the services of untrained providers. A study estimated that about 700 teenagers resort to unsafe illegal abortion each day in Kenya. Teenagers account for 30 percent to 80 percent of the cases of abortion complications in sub-Saharan African countries, and often overload the meager health care facilities that exist. Maternal illness often locks women and children in a vicious cycle of poverty. For poor women in the poorest nations, pregnancy and childbearing are risky. The WHO estimates that more than 500,000 women die each year from pre
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