Don't force women to mother unwanted kids

Below is commentary from Caribbean Dawn, a women's rights lobby.

The issue of revised legislation to expand access to safe abortion services has been returned to the public agenda by Ms Lisa Hanna, minister of youth and culture, in her presentation during the Sectoral Debate on the national Budget.

This is a most welcome development, since a joint select committee established by the previous government was unceremoniously abandoned in 2010 by that administration before the committee presented its report.

While the concerned stakeholder-citizens were still looking to the committee to continue the process, lobbying by religious elements, including the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, to both sides of Parliament led to inclusions in the Charter of Rights which assert the personhood of the foetus, and inserting shut-out savings clauses which effectively decided the issue in order to preclude changes to the legislation.

This was done without any participation of the stakeholder-citizens, and without reference to the consultations on which both time and money had been spent by the Government, that is to say, by the taxpayers of this country.

Discriminating against women

Since 1975, efforts to get changes to protect the health of women by affording them the option of safe abortion, successive administrations have lacked the courage to make the necessary changes. Only women get pregnant. This is clear evidence that discrimination against women and girls is alive and well when the Parliament allowed for these constitutional amendments to go forward.

Refusing to change this legislation is discriminatory. Entrenching it in the Constitution further narrows women's citizenship as only child-bearers, as once a woman gets pregnant, what happens now becomes a matter of the State, the doctors, and, increasingly, the Church. Where is the woman's voice in this decision?

The circumstances under which women, particularly teenage girls, get pregnant are often far from ideal, including several forms of sexual violence, transactional sex, and structural violence such as poverty and social discrimination, and inconsistent access to birth control to adolescent girls.

If we are to give our women a fighting chance to lift themselves out of this situation, we must remove from their lives the obligation to bear children they do not want. This will reduce the number of children who are now without proper care because they are unwanted or because the parents - and, particularly, the mothers on whom the main burden falls even where men contribute - are unable to provide them with the care they need.

Not abortion on demand

The proposals put forward for revising this legislation make it clear that this is not a matter of abortion on demand. The provisions provide for counselling and other support to ensure that women make the choice that is best for them among the available alternatives.

The Government, across administrations, spends far too much in the health system on complications from botched abortions done illegally. These botched abortions are proof that women will choose agency regardless of the inefficacy of the law and regardless of the health risks.

We are more than vessels of future citizens. We are citizens here and now. Revise the legislation to ensure that all women in Jamaica have access to the option of safe and legal abortion services under the circumstances guided by health standards.

We should not be criminalised to make a personal decision that affects our individual lives, our health, our future life chances, and that of our family members. As citizens of this country, after 50 years of Independence and after more than a hundred years of having a law (the Offences Against the Persons Act) as a shackle, we deserve more.

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