REGARDLESS OF where one stands on the issue of abortion, the report in this newspaper on the rate of abortions among teenagers would have come as a shock to any thinking person. It is estimated that as many as 30 per cent of Jamaican teens have had one abortion, and improperly performed 'back-door' abortions are ranked as the fifth cause of maternal deaths.
This obviously has major sociological implications as many as 30 per cent of the girls having abortions said they were doing so because they are too poor to afford a child. This compares with 23 per cent of cases of abortion because the pregnancy was seen as life-threatening.
The situation is not helped by the chasm that exists between the legal prohibition against performing abortions in Jamaica, which carries a prison term for life, and the official government 'policy', which permits the procedure on the grounds of mental health, foetal impairment, rape and incest.
The apparent contradiction in the relatively high rate of abortions induced by economic consideration and those done for health-related reasons needs to be clarified by government authorities. In doing so, they should be mindful that other countries which have liberalised their abortion laws have nevertheless been careful to limit the trimester in which the life of the foetus may be terminated.
To the anti-abortionists, more liberal legislation that allows greater access to abortion for health reasons may seem to be a moral cop-out, but to legislators, it may be a reasonable compromise aimed primarily at reducing the incidence of life-threatening 'unsafe' operations.
From neither a moral nor a sociological perspective can we be complacent about a 30 per cent abortion rate among teenagers. The root cause appears to be a rampant sexual explosion across the board in Jamaica in which recreational sex is not much different than going to the cinema. This cavalier attitude among the nation's young will not be helped much by the calls for greater use of
condoms, for, in the heat of the moment, passion overrides reason and restraint.
What is really needed is an intensification in the educational campaigns that emphasise the risks to life and personal development of early pregnancies. The abortion rate should be a wake-up call to all concerned.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
