Purpose

Health care professionals’ attitudes and behaviours play a fundamental role in the provision of timely comprehensive abortion care as a maternal health intervention and save hundreds of thousands of women’s lives, annually. Hence, this study explores underlying factors influencing their attitudes and behaviours towards comprehensive abortion care between 2015 and 2020.

Materials and methods

The study inductively explored Ethiopian and Tanzanian health care professionals’ behaviours using a comparative case study design and a textual analytical approach. Published and unpublished literature, documents and newspapers were used as data sources. The two cases were selected because of their different approaches towards the governance of abortion care, one gradually legalising while the other persistently restricting.

Results

Results demonstrated that there are both subjective (beliefs, attitudes, images, pre-dispositions) and objective (institutional incapacity) factors that impact the actions of health care professionals in the work environment.

Conclusions

The study concluded that the intervention of subjective factors results from the institutional failure to effectively bridge the divide between governance and accessibility of safe abortion care.