January 22 marked the 35th anniversary of Roe v Wade, the United States Supreme Court case that gave birth to the landmark decision that overturned all state and federal laws restricting or prohibiting abortion. The hot-button topic of abortion rights, although a polarising issue and of enormous importance to the party base of both Republicans and Democrats, kept an unusually low profile in the recent US elections, dampened no doubt, by the Obama factor, seen as the spoiler in the furious debate that should have come to a head during the presidential election campaign.
On the home front, the proposed legalisation of abortion has drawn sharp lines between those for legislation and those against it. The issue revolves around the rights of the unborn foetus and the perceived immorality of abortion and ultimately, the rights of the woman in making decisions regarding her sexual and reproductive health. The debate is necessary, even welcome, as the nation grapples with its collective conscience and the moral implications of its decision.
A powerful argument
The procedure has been featured at various stages of foetal development in punishing detail through videos and pictures designed to unseat the sensitivities of the most ardent pro-choice sympathiser, and to render a powerful argument as to why abortion should remain illegal. In the public forum, the Church has emerged as the most outspoken advocate against the practice, condemning it outright as a grave evil, without any exception. Joining the chorus is the Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ) and the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, which has been vociferous in its opposition to any Government proposal moving to legalise abortion 'on demand'.
The pro-lifers voice as one of their concerns, that with abortion criminalised, veto power regarding carrying the pregnancy to full term is denied the female, thus forcing her to place her own life at risk by resorting to the unlawful procedure under 'back-street' conditions. The evidence is mounting.
Against the backdrop of a World Health Organisation (WHO) report claiming that approximately 22,000 abortions are performed in Jamaica each year, a 17-member Abortion Policy Review Advisory Group, set up in September 2005 to review abortion policies and recommend amendments to existing laws, tabled a report in Parliament about a year ago, stating that the public-health sector was being burdened by the cases of women who suffer complications as a result of botched abortions.
The report went on to reveal that during a six-month period, 641 patients had been treated for ailments resulting from complications following illegal abortions, treatments they were unable to afford, and which, in some cases, proved more expensive than the procedure performed under optimum conditions. It is also alarming that post-procedural complications are among the 10 leading causes of maternal mortality in Jamaica, especially among pregnant teens. With the cost of an abortion at about J$40,000 at the hands of a well-trained physician, few working-class mothers can afford this, so the pregnancies are usually terminated by inexperienced practitioners.
A Ministry of Health-commissioned report has recommended that the current laws prohibiting abortion be repealed and replaced with legislation specifying the conditions under which medical termination of pregnancy would be legal. The authorities ignore this report at their own peril, especially as the health sector is currently under severe strain following the Golding administration's gift of free health care.
It is worthy of note that while abortion remains a criminal offence, Jamaican common law does allow it in cases of "significant foetal abnormality", or where continuation of the pregnancy would pose a threat to the "welfare or health" of the female, and also in cases where pregnancy results from rape or incest. For cases falling outside these exceptions, the physician remains the sole arbiter in determining whether or not termination should take place, which leaves the woman out in the cold regarding her readiness to maintain the pregnancy and the child, and placing both the physician and pregnant woman in danger of prosecution should the pregnancy be terminated.
As is so common in Jamaica, if the unlawful is practised long enough and becomes widespread, attracting no penalty, it comes to occupy a kind of 'twilight zone' of activity, where it remains illegal on the books, but is winked at, as a matter of convenience. Like ganja-smoking, casino gambling and a host of other declared vices, abortions are performed daily in contravention of the toothless law that the Church and its choir would prefer to retain on the books, as trophy evidence of the nation's strong moral stance. Whether it is enforced or not, does not seem to pose a challenge.
The elusive
We live in a nation where our eyes tend to overlook reality and focus on the elusive somewhere in the distance. Instead of mounting a vigorous birth-control campaign to stem the incidence of unwanted pregnancies, we hear sermonising that 'abstinence' be not only the primary, but as the only message to the youth. This comes from an adult population, almost half of which sees sexual prowess as a virtue and has trouble restraining its own sexual urges, yet expects the masses of adolescents with raging hormones and no discipline to control theirs. So, while children give birth to children, there is a grim determination to encourage full-term pregnancies without exception, citing future "psychological, self-esteem and medical problems" for the woman as the post-traumatic disorders of abortion, according to the NAJ president, Edith Allwood-Anderson.
Yet, scant attention is paid to the welfare of the unwanted children once they leave the womb, when very often it is they who suffer neglect, abuse and a punishing existence at the hands of their unwilling parents. Later, when they begin to manifest psychological, self-esteem and delinquency problems, we deem them irredeemable and vote to hang nooses around their necks. It all makes no sense.
As a signatory to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, Jamaica has undertaken to reduce maternal mortality by 2015, a goal that can in no way be achieved unless women gain access to safe and legal abortion services. A capricious approach to the question of abortion is not the option; we need to look squarely at the reality and make sensible, workable decisions. Moral values and the right of the foetus notwithstanding, the State needs to recognise the right of the mother to terminate a pregnancy stemming from rape or incest. Since abortion is not to be considered a form of birth control, it would be in the interest of the State to provide more access to information on efficient methods of birth control through aggressive family planning campaigns.
Kadene Porter is a South Florida-based freelance writer. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com