By Roy Sanford, Staff ReporterWESTERN BUREAU:
RELIGIOUS LEADERS, arguing that abortion is morally wrong, have condemned the recent call by a retired medical administrator for the legalisation of abortion in Jamaica.
"The Catholic Church is opposed to murder; it is simple as that," declared the Most Rev. Paul Boyle, Roman Catholic Bishop of Mandeville. "Even if there is a high rate of maternal deaths you cannot kill one person to save another."
LEGALISATION AND REGULATION
Dr. Joseph Hall, retired head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of the West Indies, Mona, made the call for the legalisation and regulation of abortion in a presentation at the fifth International Conference on Adolescent Health and Welfare and World Youth Forum held in Jamaica last week.
According to Dr. Hall, the rate of maternal deaths in Jamaica has remained constant for too long, noting that abortion was the third leading cause of maternal deaths in Jamaica. He warned that the illegal medical procedure was encouraging a black market for the medication.
IMMORAL TO KILL
However, according to Bishop Boyle, the Catholic Church teaches that it is immoral to kill one person to save another. "If, for example, a drunken driver is driving recklessly down a road on the path of killing a little girl, it would be wrong to shoot and kill the drunken driver," he said in explaining his position. "Abortion is the greatest evil of our time. We think it is morally wrong and we condemn the call for its legalisation."
Another religious leader, the Reverend Everald Galbraith, pastor of the St. John Methodist Church in Montego Bay, argued that if abortion were made available "on demand", it would be detrimental to society. "If everyone has an abortion whenever they want, then eventually we are not going to have a population," he posited.
He said that while he is not prepared to talk on behalf of the entire Methodist Church, he thinks there are certain circumstances when an abortion can be permitted. "It only has to be done after consultation with a doctor and I repeat abortions should not be made available on demand," Rev. Galbraith emphasised.
Meanwhile, Bishop Herro Blair of the Faith Cathedral Deliverance Centre said that based on his experiences he could not support the call for the legalisation of abortion. "My mother was told by six specialists that I should be aborted but look at me today," he said. "So based on my life experience I really cannot support that call."
According to Dr. Hall, the maternal mortality rate in Jamaica has been 110 per 100,000 for the past 12 years.
