Terminating pregnancies should be legal

Jaevion Nelson, Gleaner Writer

TWO YEARS ago, my friend 'Whitney' committed a 'criminal act' for which she could be sentenced for up to life in prison. Whitney is one of 22,000 Jamaican women aged 15-44 years who, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) have an abortion every year. Her reasons weren't extraordinary. She was a student who was not financially or emotionally prepared for a child. She opted, after careful consideration, to pay $25,000 to terminate the pregnancy she didn't plan for. Nearly half of all pregnancies - 41 per cent - are unplanned (2002 Reproductive Health Survey).

It's regrettable we have allowed Christian ideology to overrule technical guidance from the Abortion Policy Review Group set up by the Ministry of Health in 2005. This has undoubtedly been to the misery of so many Jamaican women - the poor especially- who are in desperate need of abortion services. Why did we bother to invest in another committee whose recommendations we have ignored?

life imprisonment

If your mother, sister, daughter, cousin, or helper terminates her pregnancy, she is liable to be imprisoned for up to life because abortions are illegal under Section 72 of the (archaic) Offences Against the Person Act. And if you attempt to supply or purchase material intended for an abortion, you can be charged as well. A doctor can, however, perform an abortion to save a woman's life, or preserve her mental or physical health.

I can't help but recall the predicament Dr Lloyd Goldson, an obstetrics and gynaecology consultant, found himself in last July when he was charged for performing an abortion at the request of the mother of a 12-year-old. If Dr Goldson denied their request, that 12 year-old would have been one of many girls 10-19 years who are likely to be expelled from school for being pregnant. It's only sensible that every female has equal access to safe and affordable abortion services. Why should the poor have to jeopardise their health or risk being imprisoned to do this?

From as early as 1975, Kenneth McNeil, the minister of health at the time, attempted to correct the gross social injustice to the Jamaican people via a submission to make abortion legal.

Unfortunately, he succumbed to "the power of religious institutions that railed against it and against the fairness and justice it would have allowed" (Abortion Policy Review Advisory Group). Dr McNeil, who was also a medical doctor, devised a new strategy and "enacted a policy of providing safe abortion services in a public health clinic on Eureka Road in Kingston 13". On May 4, 1989, Dr Deanna Ashley refined and reaffirmed this liberal policy with the creation of a carefully managed Fertility Management Unit at the Glen Vincent Health Centre.

These services were desperately needed because medical practitioners found that, despite great awareness, many women put themselves at risk to terminate their pregnancy. The needs for abortion services remain unchanged. Recently, a colleague told me his 19 year-old patient (from St Elizabeth) died with findings that were strongly suggestive of retained products of conception after a therapeutic abortion. According to the WHO, "abortions and complications thereof are the eighth leading cause of maternal deaths in Jamaica affecting adolescents primarily".

Evidently, the illegality of abortion doesn't prevent its practice. Between March 1 and August 31, 2005, there were 641 patients at Ward 5, which deals exclusively with abortions at the Victoria Jubilee Hospital. All patients were from inner-city communities, single, and nearly half were Christians while a third were teenagers. About 40 per cent admitted to having had a previous termination of pregnancy and 30 per cent had two or more previous abortions.

Despite efforts to subvert the reproductive rights of women, many Jamaicans support a more liberal abortion law. In 1973, a survey found almost all physicians (84 per cent) and nurses and midwives (88 per cent) were in favour of abortion. Recently, a 2006 public opinion survey conducted by Hope Enterprise found about "60 per cent of respondents support the legalisation of termination of pregnancy under "special conditions" such as "incest, endangerment of the woman's physical or mental health and/or life."

It is time the Parliament act on the 2007 recommendations to repeal the abortion law and state clear the conditions under which abortion will be lawful. Let us create a legacy for Dr McNeil to benefit our women and girls. The advisory group provided very clear guidelines, including penalties and time periods about when and where abortions should be performed, at http://bit.ly/YEg8nG.

Jaevion Nelson is a youth development, HIV and human rights advocate. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and jaevion@gmail.com.