Assessing external influence in socially contentious policy reform: Ethiopian reproductive health leaders' understandings of foreign involvement in Ethiopia's 2005 reform of its penal code with respect to abortion

Maternal mortality due to unsafe abortion remains a persistent problem in lower-income countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Abortion law reform, although rare, has the potential to reduce maternal mortality due to unsafe abortion, as well as to rouse deep public conflict, rooted in individuals' firmly held core values. International actors increasingly seek to influence national policy-making on abortion, on both sides of the issue, particularly in low-income countries. What shapes do these influences take, and how effective are they perceived to be? In 2005, Ethiopia's Parliament substantially expanded legal access to abortion through an overhaul of its Penal Code providing an opportunity to examine these issues. This qualitative research explores Ethiopian reform actors' attitudes and understandings of international forces' and actors' influence on reform, drawing on 49 in-depth interviews conducted in Addis Ababa with Ethiopian leaders in the reproductive health sector, as well as on newspaper articles, organizational documents, opinion data, and secondary research. These research findings provide empirical data on national reproductive health opinion leaders' assessments of international influences on national policy. The findings are intended to inform those seeking to reduce maternal mortality by increasing women's access to safe and legal abortion.