So I was watching this show the other day called Toughest Place to be a Midwife and I watched the very end where this African girl came into the hospital with painful pains in her private area. By talking to her they found out that she was pregnant and had decided to take traditional medicine to get rid of the pregnancy and she had but after the nurses trying to fix the damage she had done to herself, she died.

Sex and Temperament By you neighborhood librarian Photo Taken April 27 2007 CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0

Apparently this happens more often than I thought it did, my mum told me a story of her friend who got pregnant and used traditional medicine to get rid of the pregnancy, she went to an elderly woman who doesn't use the proper material and they just pull the placenta out of her body and that was it. This is so terrifying to me and it really got me thinking. The reason why African females go to such lengths to get rid of their pregnancies is because of the threats we get from our families at a very young age.

"If you get pregnant, I will kill you" or "If you get pregnant, you can get out of my house", the thought of being disgraced by your family scares any African female so much so that they go to such measures to keep secrets, to hide things that may ruin their status with their family. Unlike Western culture where most parents are open to talking about sex and opening the door to sexual freedom, African parents are still traditional in their ways, they don't talk about it but you know that once you do that you are SCREWED. In my opinion this traditional view breeds secrets, lies, hidden agendas and rebellion.

What do you all think about these threats? Have you experienced this or are you an exception to the rule?