Abortion: We lack both courage and compassion

THE EDITOR, Madam:

Some 85 years ago, a doctor in England performed an abortion on a 14-year-old girl and then called the chief constable so he would be arrested.

On trial at the Old Bailey, his defence was that the pregnancy would have made the girl a “mental wreck”. Alec Bourne was acquitted. His courage expanded the grounds for lawful abortion from the limited case of saving the life of the woman to protecting her physical and mental health.

He performed the abortion at the request of her parents, after she had been raped by five officers of the Royal Horse Guards.

The case, R v Bourne [1938] 3 All E.R. 615, is a landmark in British law.

Now 85 years later, we prosecute a doctor in Nassau for performing an abortion on a 15-year-old girl at the request of her mother and sister, according to a news item published in The Gleaner, on October 17. Punishment without purpose.

Two years ago in Antigua and Barbuda, a 10-year-old girl was left to carry her pregnancy to term.

What is the basis for our persistent stupidity? Inertia? Political cowardice? Religious absolutism? Silence? All the above?

So, we arrest the doctor and others who provide this clandestine care are intimidated. This does not stop abortions. It only makes them more unsafe, driving women into riskier situations.

Of course, the fundamental problem is the asymmetry of power. Those with the power to change the law have no need to change it. While those with the need to change the law have no power to do so.

We speak ever so glibly about teen pregnancies. Almost 80 per cent of those teen pregnancies are the result of relationships with men 20 years and older. More than half of them involve young men 20-24.

Yet we focus on the vulnerable teens rather than on the rapacious, exploitative young men. We even blame the teenage girls.

Are we so incapable of addressing our blatant social challenges?

In March 2022, the very conservative WHO declared access to abortion a human right and recommended the decriminalisation of abortion. In the last month, PAHO has aligned itself with the WHO’s guidance. I hope this will help us to move forward.

FRED NUNES