Do Nigerian women have right to decide what happens to own bodies?

By Ogunmola Muizat

Cases like the one that went viral in April 2026- a woman in labour, unable to deliver vaginally and in urgent need of a cesarean section (CS), whose husband refused to consent keep surfacing in Nigeria. “We don’t do CS in our family,” he reportedly said. It was not the first such case, and unless something changes, it will not be the last.

All the different stories raise an uncomfortable question: “Which Nigerian law says a woman cannot sign her own consent form?” The answer is none. Section 23 of Nigeria’s National Health Act (2014) requires healthcare providers to give patients clear, comprehensive information about their condition, treatment options, risks, and their right to refuse care, placing that decision with the patient only, rather than her spouse.

Medical experts confirm this: once a woman is an adult of sound mind, her consent alone is what the law requires for a life-saving procedure like a C-section. A husband’s blessing may be sought for support, but it isn’t a legal precondition.

Yet on labor wards across the country, that reality often gives way to practice. Hospitals trying to avoid conflict, families invoking tradition, and husbands asserting authority they don’t legally have, delaying emergency surgery until it was too late.

Why the delay is dangerous, not just unfair

A C-section becomes medically necessary for reasons like obstructed labor, fetal distress, or a narrow pelvis, among many others. Every hour of delay raises the risk of uterine rupture, oxygen deprivation, disability, or death. When a husband withholds consent, he isn’t voicing a preference: he’s making a clinical decision he’s neither trained nor legally entitled to make.

The reasons vary: deep-rooted cultural beliefs about “real” birth, religious misconceptions, pressure from family, and societal stigma. Whatever the justification, the outcome is always the same: a woman’s body becomes a bargaining point for people who aren’t even on the operating table.

This is a bodily autonomy issue and a gender-based violence issue
Bodily autonomy is the right to make decisions about one’s own body, free from control, coercion, or violence. It is the basis for informed consent, healthcare access, and reproductive rights.

When a husband ties a life-saving surgery to threats of divorce, or a family overrides her medical decisions on cultural grounds, that is coercive control: a form of gender-based violence, even without a physical blow. It sits on the same continuum as forced marriage and denial of contraception: her body decided on by everyone but her.
Closing the gap between law and practice

Nigeria already has a law giving women authority over their bodies during childbirth. What’s missing is enforcement, and a change in what hospitals, families, and husbands think they’re allowed to decide. Hospitals need to train staff to see the pregnant woman, not her husband, as the legal decision-maker in emergencies. The public needs to know that husband “consent” for C-sections is a myth and a husband refusing emergency care should be treated not as a family matter, but as what it can become: a threat to a woman’s life.

Nigerian women already have the right to decide what happens to their bodies. Now that right needs to be honored where it matters most: the delivery room.

Ogunmola Muizat Ariyike is a clinical pharmacist specializing in sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), focusing on grassroots health communication, advocacy, and designing community-led strategies to advance equitable healthcare access.