THE EDITOR, SirIT IS encouraging to see some growing interest in discussing the issue of abortion which has been so carefully ignored for the last three decades. In 1974, a mere seven years after England passed its Abortion Act, the Ministry of Health quietly declared a policy that substantially increased access to abortion, at least in Kingston. The reality of unsafe abortion stands on two sad legs our class structure and the status of women.
Regarding class, the fact is that our archaic law of abortion persists because it really harms only poor women. If the law was in any way a hindrance to women in the middle and upper classes it would have been changed a long time ago. In respect of the status of women in general and poor women in particular, they lack the political clout to generate pressure for even this most elemental right over their own bodies.
WRETCHED LAW
Until those who are strong and powerful learn to care for others who are weak and vulnerable, this wretched law will glide along and in all its cruel inertia continue to wreak havoc on the lives of thousands of poor women year after year after year.
The last thing we need is another survey. What we need is more of the courage we once had, a generation ago - to take forthright action to address the needs of the poor. Your staff reporters, Eulalee Thompson and Dionne Ross (Gleaner, January 10) illustrated the pernicious practice of a health system that can legally treat complications of abortions initiated by a variety of agents, including doctors. But that same system cannot generally provide abortion services. They did not point out that a restrictive law of abortion is itself the cause of the problem. They did not mention that no society has ever effectively enforced restrictive abortion laws.
COMMON EXPERIENCE
Abortion is a common experience among the vast majority of our adult population. That we have managed to marginalise and stigmatise this issue is a great tribute to our capacity for denial and suppression.
We need to go forward by reaching back and grasping the courage we had in the 1970s. We need the strident appetite for social justice. We need to take action not hide behind the need to research and document the obvious. We have no sense of urgency because none of us who reads or writes letters to the editor is at the slightest risk of an unsafe abortion.
I am, etc.,
FREDERICK E. NUNES
ydelph@aol.com
Running Ridge Lan
Silver Spring, Maryland
