PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad ( CMC):
IN JAMAICA, where abortions are illegal, the medical community, led by the Medical Association of Jamaica (MAJ), has been lobbying the government in Kingston for changes to the current laws on abortion, which date back to 1864.
Jamaica's 'Offences Against the Person Act' warns in part that "any woman, whether she be or not be with child, (who) unlawfully administers to her or causes to be taken by her any poison or other noxious thing, or unlawfully uses any instrument or other means whatsoever, with the like intent, is guilty of a felony."
Earlier this year, the National Family Planning Board (NFPB) re-launched the 'The Morning After Pill' after a study in 2000 showed that 84 per cent of 15-19 year-olds were interested in emergency contraception to deal with the high rate of teenage pregnancies.
Janet Davis, Director-Outreach at the NFPB, said that "with the availability of this pill unplanned pregnancies and the number of abortions will be reduced."
The MAJ and others have often cited the Barbados law The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act (1983) as an example for change in the region.
'FAR REACHING'
The National Organisation of Women in Barbados (NOW) has also described the 1983 legislation that allows for abortion in certain circumstances as 'far reaching', adding that it no doubt 'saved a large number of lives of women'.
But NOW President Nalita Gajadhar says her organisation believes it is time for the authorities to re-consider the legislation so as to 'offer women and men the choice to determine what it is they want to do with their bodies'.
"I am not advocating abortion as a method of birth control but I am accepting that there are circumstances where one will become pregnant and that for a number of reasons one might opt not to have that child, and the need to make it safe for women to exert that choice," she told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).
"What we would be fighting for is to ensure that the right of the woman is not taken away and that the so called moral right in society that is emerging does not get more licence to try to curb the choices the rights of women to choose in the future."
St. Lucia's Home Affairs Minister Sara Flood-Beaubrun was recently faced with the dilemma, as a pregnant Member of Parliament, whether or not to support her government's plans to legalise some forms of abortion.
CRIMINAL CODE
She chose to go the route of her conscience, joining with hundreds of citizens in a demonstration designed to thwart her administration's plans to amend the Criminal Code that would allow abortion in certain cases including rape and incest.
Flood-Beaubrun acknowledges that it was a risky position to take.
"It would be sad if it had to come to me losing my job over this, but I am prepared to lose my job and more, for this cause," she told reporters during the demonstration, which took place last month.
Arguing that 'abortion is the greatest destroyer of women', Flood-Beaubrun went on to draw a comparison between the penalty for rape and the death of an unborn child. "We do not even have the death sentence for rapists, why should we pass the death sentence for an innocent child?" she asked.
But Attorney-General Petrus Compton insists that Clause 166 is about giving a woman "a voice and a choice because her consent is important."
That section states in part that 'where a medical practitioner has reason to believe that...the continuance of a pregnancy involves a risk to the life of the pregnant woman; the pregnancy is as of rape or incest; or a termination is necessary to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman, he or she may with the consent of the pregnant woman or a person authorised by the pregnant woman terminate the pregnancy."
Like most of the other regional states where the abortion issue is being debated, there are no statistics on legal abortions in St. Lucia.
The Kenny Anthony government, which was accused of attempting to sneak in the abortion clause into the 610-page Criminal Code Bill, has deferred the introduction of the legislation in order to provide for more public debate.
The Trinidad-based Advocates for Safe Parenthood: Improving Reproductive Equity (ASPIRE) estimates that more than 20,000 abortions take place in Trinidad annually and it costs the country more than US$166,000 per month to care for women suffering from botched abortions.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), every year, unintended pregnancies lead to at least 20 million unsafe abortions, resulting in the deaths of some 80,000 women.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) reported last year that five million women aged 15-19 have abortions every year, 40 per cent of whom are performed under unsafe conditions.
According to the WHO, developing countries show unsafe abortion as a high risk for death among women, with one out of 250 procedures resulting in a fatality. For developed countries where the practice is legal, it is one in 3,700.
The existing law against abortion has its origin 200 years ago in Lord Ellenborough's Act of 1803. That became the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act of 1861, which is the parent of the abortion laws throughout the Commonwealth, including the Caribbean. Abortion rights advocates argue that as far back as 1967, Britain abandoned the idea of restricting abortions and made it legal.
The non-government organisation, Caribbean Association for Feminist Research (CAFRA), is urging support for abortion rights and reproductive freedom for women.
"This basic right has been ignored for too long. Public policy should be based on objective assessments of social conditions and an informed appreciation of social aspirations," it said in a statement regarding the controversy in St. Lucia.
LITTLE OR NO CHANGE
It noted that since 1975, Caribbean Health Ministers had given a commitment to review the law of abortion but said there has been little or no change.
"Yet we continue to ignore the serious social challenges and the urgent need to provide women with safe and health conditions when they are faced with difficult choices about their own sexual and reproductive health," it added.
Even as she agrees that the laws regarding abortion are outdated, Trinidad and Tobago's Attorney General Glenda Morean-Phillip is aware of public opinion and the furore the issue would evoke. "If and when we have to look at the law, we also have be sensitive to public opinion to see where people would want that law to go and how far," she said recently.
ASPIRE's Lynette Seebaran-Suite, a family lawyer, speaking on a radio programme in St. Lucia recently, argued that there were areas where the illegality of abortion can be challenged.
"We have not found any prosecutions under the abortion law and therefore the law has not been tested. There have been some cases of manslaughter arising from the issue but never directly. There should be some clarification as to what doctors can do," she said.
