Edgar Kuchingale, a doctor in Malawi who also attended the conference, told me that to this day prejudice, especially about immoral sexual behavior, remains a major hurdle. But for Brookman-Amissah, now vice president for Africa of Ipas, a reproductive-health nongovernmental organization, the problem mostly lies elsewhere: “It is not as if it is by custom that Africans are against abortion. Rather, it is the colonial laws that we need to get rid of.”

Many restrictive abortion laws in Africa date back to colonial codes, and the bigotry of the law has trickled through society. Mali’s law is based on the Napoleonic Code from 1810, which forbade abortion. Nigeria’s, one of the world’s most restrictive, dates back to a British provision from 1861.