Kendeka Prize winner Scholastica Moraa explores abortion in her short story 'Chained'

Chained is the haunting tale of 22-year-old Danielle, alone, bleeding in the bathroom, staring at imminent death after having procured an abortion. Her thoughts are in a state of turmoil as she reflects on the events that led to the present moment. She is full of regrets but it is too late now. The story is story is told via flashback. Danielle's father has just secured her an internship position at an auctioneer's firm, in a remote outpost. At first, she finds the job boring but then things start brightening up after she meets and falls in love with a man, working at a law firm. The girl wrestles with feelings of guilt, but then, with each sweetener she receives from her lover, she discards her inhibitions and justifies the illicit affair. Sample this: "I turned from preaching 'monogamy is the true love' to 'the y in your man is silent'." Even amidst the justifications, the man's wedding ring serves as an 'unwelcome' reminder of what she is getting herself into. Though she tries resisting the man's advances, her defences are weak and she quickly succumbs to the man's slick moves; gifts and all. Her feeble attempts at resisting the sexual overtures from the man, are easily swept aside, when he sweetens the deals with offers of employment. After his insistence pays off and he succeeds in deflowering Danielle, she naively hopes that her guardian angel will prevent her from getting pregnant. Shortly after, she he finds out, to her horror, that she is indeed carrying the man's baby. This leads her to a backstreet clinic to procure the services of an abortionist. She does not have enough cash to pay for the 'service', so the man offers to 'offset' the balance if only she agrees to have sex with him. The operation goes horribly wrong and now the girl stares death in the eye. The issue of illegally procured abortions has been with us for the longest time. So too are the deaths that follow. So widespread are these incidents that society has reduced the victims to mere statistics; it is not news anymore. However, in this story, Moraa humanises the subject through her tragic character Danielle. Chained painfully brings home the fact that victims of abortion are living, breathing people, with needs and desires, just like we do; only that they made a wrong choice at some point in life. They are daughters, sisters, nieces, granddaughters, etc. They could be your relative. The story is also an indictment of predatory men; particularly married men, who prey on naive girls, ruining their futures, even destroying their lives, like in Danielle's case. Many men in such instances get away scot-free, probably to go and ruin the life of yet another girl. The man, in this story, remains unnamed, probably the author's way of highlighting how society allows such men to easily get away with it. Moraa's searing prose brings to the fore the debate about abortion, which the Kenyan society would rather it remains buried under the carpet while girls, like Danielle, continue losing their lives in the process trying to procure illegal abortions. Those who survive are left permanently scarred, some unable to bear children. Sometimes last year, a quack medic going by the name Mugo wa Wairimu was convicted in a case where he had been caught on camera sexually assaulting patients at one of his clinics. It is also a well-documented fact that wa Wairimu also offered abortion services to desperate Nairobi women. Going by Danielle's example where she had to offer her body, for the operation to be done, it is not too difficult to imagine this was normal fare at wa Wairimu's clinics. Moraa's story is a powerful reminder to the society that women's reproductive health is a topic that needs to be addressed with utmost urgency. Abortion is a touchy subject worldwide. Here in Kenya, it remains illegal except in certain mitigating circumstances. In the US, the Republican-dominated Supreme Court repealed Roe v Wade, a landmark decision, where Constitution of the United States approved the right to have an abortion. The reversal of Roe v Wade had some ramifications in the US, like the the poor performance for Republicans in last year's midterm elections, where the much anticipated 'Red Wave' failed to materialise. Chained stands out in the expert use of language. The author has a way with words; every word has meaning. An example will suffice: "... It all came down to a spoilt love story and I was the villain. It was my love story but I was a minor character..." Moraa's ease with words can be attributed to the fact that she is a poet. Now poetry, according to Rita Dove, an American poet, is 'language at it most distilled and most powerful'. She is an Actuarial Science graduate from Jaramogi University with a number of poetry publications to her name. They include Beautiful Mess. She has also co-authored two poetry anthologies, Dreams and Demons, with Anyango Nyar Aketch, Emily Millern and Winnie Mador, and This Heart of Mine, with Betty Kilonzo. Chained won the 2022 edition of the Kendeka Prize for African Literature The anthology containing the shortlisted stories in the 2022 Kendeka Prize for African Literature, which includes Chained, is available at Nuria Bookstore. Ngunjiri is the curator of Maisha Yetu, a digital Arts and Books media platform mbugua5ngunjiri@gmail.com

Kendeka Prize winner Scholastica Moraa explores abortion in her short story 'Chained'

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Kendeka Prize winner Scholastica Moraa explores abortion in her short story 'Chained'

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