INTRODUCTION At the turn of the century, when the Millennium Development Goals placed maternal mortality reduction high on the global agenda, Ethiopia relaxed its restrictive abortion law to expand grounds on which a woman could legally obtain an abortion. This radical policy shift took place within a context of predominant anti-abortion public opinion shaped by strong religious convictions. Drawing upon Walt and Gilson's policy analysis framework, this paper explores the tension between public policy and religious dogma for the strategies chosen by the Ethiopian Ministry of Health and its partners implementing the new policy, and for access to safe abortion services. METHODS The study employed a qualitative research methodology. It targeted organizations that are key stakeholders in the field of reproductive health. These included policy makers and policy implementers like ministries, UN agencies and international and national NGOs as well as religious organizations as key opinion leaders. The data collection took place in Addis Ababa between 2016 and 2018. A total of 26 interviews were conducted, transcribed, and analyzed using the principles of qualitative content analysis. RESULTS Our analysis showed that the implementing organizations adopted a strategy of silence not to provoke anti-abortion sentiments and politicization of the abortion issue which was seen as a threat to the revised law and policy. This strategy has facilitated a rollout of services and has improved access to safe abortion care. Nevertheless informants were concerned that the silence strategy has prevented dissemination of knowledge about the revised law to the general public, to health workers and to the police. In turn this has caused confusion about eligibility to legal and safe abortion procedures. CONCLUSIONS While silence as a strategy works to protect the law enhancing the health and survival of young women, it may at the same time prevent the law from being fully effective. As a long term strategy, silence fails to expand awareness and access to safe abortion services, and may not sufficiently serve to fulfill the potential of the law to prevent abortion related maternal deaths.

中文翻译：

---

“不安的妥协”：在埃塞俄比亚实现允许的堕胎法的策略和困境。

引言在世纪之交，千年发展目标将降低孕产妇死亡率列为全球议程的重点时，埃塞俄比亚放宽了限制性堕胎法，以扩大妇女合法获得堕胎的依据。这种根本性的政策转变是在强烈的宗教信仰所塑造的主要反对堕胎的公众舆论的背景下发生的。本文基于沃尔特和吉尔森（Walt and Gilson）的政策分析框架，探讨了埃塞俄比亚卫生部及其合作伙伴实施新政策所选择的策略以及获得安全堕胎服务的公共政策与宗教教条之间的张力。方法本研究采用定性研究方法。它针对的是生殖健康领域主要利益相关者的组织。这些机构包括政策制定者和政策实施者，例如政府部门，联合国机构，国际和国家非政府组织以及宗教组织等作为主要舆论领袖的决策者和政策实施者。数据收集于2016年至2018年在亚的斯亚贝巴进行。使用定性内容分析的原理，进行了总共26次采访，转录和分析。结果我们的分析表明，执行组织采取了沉默策略，以不激起反堕胎情绪，并将堕胎问题政治化，这被视为对修订后的法律和政策的威胁。该策略促进了服务的推出，并改善了获得安全流产护理的机会。不过，线人担心，沉默策略阻碍了向公众传播有关修订后的法律的知识，卫生工作者和警察。反过来，这又使人们对合法合法流产程序的资格感到困惑。结论虽然沉默作为一种策略可以保护法律以增强年轻女性的健康和生存，但同时也可能使法律无法完全有效。作为一项长期战略，沉默无法扩大人们对安全堕胎服务的认识和获取渠道，并且可能不足以充分发挥法律的潜力，防止与堕胎有关的孕产妇死亡。