The government has recommended that women seeking abortion travel to South Africa, where it is safe and legal.
[4] In its 2018 review of the Addis Ababa Declaration on Population and Development, the government of Lesotho listed management of unsafe abortion as a priority.
[2] The chair of the Social Cluster Committee, Fako Moshoeshoe, suggested the legalisation of abortion.
He cited the high rate of abortion complications and the need for increased public health education.
[5] On 30 March 2021, 26 members of parliament met with a group of church leaders who opposed abortion.
The meeting was led by the Southern Africa HIV and AIDS Information Dissemination Service, along with the SADC Parliamentary Forum.
[12] The government's National Health Strategic Plan 2017–2022 noted that abortion is the number one cause of hospital admissions among women.
[2] According to the Ministry of Health, the rate of hospital admissions due to spontaneous or induced abortion is 13%, as of 2018.
[2] In 2010, at Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in the capital Maseru, 73.7% of PAC patients received post-abortion family planning, but only 25.9% were briefed about it.
The U.S. government's Mexico City policy, in effect under Donald Trump, prohibited foreign organisations receiving U.S. funding from performing or distributing information about legal abortion, which limited information about Lesotho's law allowing abortion to preserve health.
[2] The policy's instatement in 2001 cut off funding for Planned Parenthood's distribution of condoms in the country.
[14] Lesotho has a high unmet need for contraception, which leads to unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions.
[2] The Ministry of Health holds sensitisation programs to educate young people about abortion, supported by the United Nations Population Fund.