Abortion law outdated, says lawyer
published:
Friday | February 22, 2008
Shelly-Ann Thompson, Staff Reporter
Macaulay
Noted attorney-at-law Margarette Macaulay is claiming that Jamaica's abortion law is extremely confusing and outdated.
Macaulay told The Gleaner yesterday that, while abortion is deemed illegal in Jamaica, there is some amount of contradiction as a ministerial policy formulated in 1975 dictates that the act could be conducted under certain circumstances.
The policy, she said, states that an abortion can be done if pregnancy was causing ill health or was a result of sexual violation.
"The law is basically obscure, because of the use of the words - 'unlawful means'," Macaulay said.
"So it is left with everybody to speculate what the law means and no law should be left to specula-tion," she added.
An advocate for women's and children's rights, Macaulay said every woman should have the right to choose, plan and decide when to have children.
"The person must decide with her conscience, her own advice and her doctor's advice," she said.
"Ultimately she has to live with that decision. Nobody can decide for her."
Charges will be laid
Deputy Superintendent of Police Herfa Beckford, head of the Centre for Investigation of Sexual Offences and Carnal Abuse, said if a report is made regarding an abortion, charges will be laid against the doctor and the complainant.
"Abortion is a criminal offence. But if you don't have the victim coming forward, with medical evidence, we have a lame case," Beckford told The Gleaner.
"It's just that that information is really limited and I can't recall someone being charged for conducting an abortion."
Beckford said too that, even if a rape victim gets pregnant and has an abortion, that information is not made available to the centre.
She said there is often no liaison between the medical officer and the centre in relation to pregnancy.
"We don't know if it was done at the hospital," she said.
