Abortion - whose decision is it after all?

Ronald Mason, Contributor

The act of submitting to an abortion is readily understood to be an act fraught with physical, emotional, religious and family consideration. No one should assume it is a routine decision. There is an astonishing degree of finality to the process of abortion. However, Jamaican society must engage in the discussion as to who has the right to make the decision.

We, as a country, by the choice of language terms, though historically rooted, do not use general terms of endearment. We speak of the babymother. This connotes that she is the mere bearer of the baby. Her role is prescribed as if it is easily interchangeable with every woman automatically capable of being a babymother.

The use of the term 'babymother' leads to her being treated differently from being the proud mother-to-be, filled with joy, expectation and promise of the future. She is really only the temporary repository of the foetus. A burden to be tolerated for nine months. Forbid it that a woman is unable to conceive. She then becomes a mule.

The reasons which lead a woman to conceive are many and varied. In our society, women sometimes display the need for unconditional love and dependency. The necessity to assert her stake as an adult, even if this is only physical, and she in unprepared for pregnancy.

The male rarely speaks about the pride of fatherhood. About the support and nurture he should provide. Rather, he generally speaks as if he is detached. Him get a youth. Someone has given him something. No upfront joy or celebration about the creation of new offspring. No sense of anything except pride that he has added to the number of babymothers.

It is against this background that birth generally takes place in Jamaica. The majority of births are to single women who are destined to remain single. They have the children so as not to be lonely. The baby is all their own, and in the course of having her lot, she is fulfilling some destiny.

Enter the male. The man, who predominantly speaks in religious terms, is ready to pontificate. The man claims pride of paternity, but makes very few plans to contribute economically. The man spouts nonsense that birth control is a plan to kill black people. The man boasts of multiple babymothers and some children whose names he does not know.

The man fails to be named on the birth certificate of the newborn. Yet he wants to lay down the dictate. You must have my yute!

THEOCRACY REARS ITS HEAD

This is the environment the woman must deal with. Her environment is ringing with exhortations that abortion is murder. Yet no one has conclusively established to the satisfaction of the scientific community that life begins at conception. We have no definite test of the time the foetus will be viable outside the womb.

Here, theocracy rears its head, with parsons at the ready to declare what the Bible says or infers. "We are a Christian country!" Yet I am unaware (and would love to be educated otherwise) of any church group, aside from Father Ho Lung's, that has an organised adoption process for mothers who wish to put the newborn for adoption.

The prospect of this country becoming a theocracy is troubling. Religious selectivity is the norm. The Commandments state: "Thou shall not kill." Yet we kill more than 1,000 persons annually and still proclaim our Christian affiliation. We may nominally be a Christian nation, but show very little charity towards each other.

Yet the 'bull' (papal, that is) edits flow as to matters of intimacy. Abstention before marriage! No to condoms! No to the termination of unwanted pregnancy! They offer platitudes: "God will provide" yet the children are uncared for and hungry. No manna from wherever.

What of the woman's choice? Who best knows her circumstances? Sometimes the crisis may find root in casual sex. Yes, it happens. Or she may be in a troubled relationship.

If the woman is in a stable, committed relationship, she will likely eagerly anticipate the birth. Blue or pink, wanted and welcome.

But if that's not the circumstance, truly, the woman alone has stark choices. Break the law and have an abortion. Give birth and abandon the newborn, perhaps in any pit latrine. Carry to full term and add to the family's burden. Hope for the father's support through his family. Go ahead struggle and cope the best she can.

She must make the choice. It is never going to be easy. Termination of a pregnancy comes with emotional burden, shame and, sometimes, rejection.

There is no certainty as to when the foetus is viable. The advancement of medical science is constantly improving the odds for the survival of preemies. One must expect that if the decision is made to terminate the pregnancy, sufficient current information would be available to the mother.

One has to expect the decision to abort would be made early in the pregnancy. It is not a decision she would take lightly. Abortion should not become a birth-control technique. It carries its own medical risks and woes related to the ability to conceive in the future. However, in Jamaica, the choice of should belong solely to the woman, no one else!

Ronald Mason is an immigration attorney-at-law/mediator/talk-show host. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and nationsagenda@gmail.com.