Abortion law is the crime

THE EDITOR: Sometimes it takes a lot of effort to untangle the twists in Ms Jacqueline Allamani’s letters (Newsday June 21).

Ms Allamani reports that our current fertility rate of 1.6 puts us well below the 2.2 mark demographers hold as necessary for population replacement. I was surprised to learn that we are so low. At ASPIRE, we share the joy of every woman with a wanted pregnancy and welcome the incentive to encourage more pregnancies. In so far as women are exercising free choice in reproduction we have no cause to enter. We are pro-life. Our only presence is where coercion and restricted choice prevail. We want all women to have the same measure of choice in respect of their reproductive role. We are pro-choice.

Ms Allamani also argues that given the current crime wave, there is no way that any sensible government would create the crime of “legalising murder” by making abortion legal. She misses the point. First, abortion is already legal, but for too restricted a set of reasons. Second, the real crime is the gross social injustice in the operation of a law that leaves some women with access to safe services and poor ones to suffer harm. We all know this. Third, the real crime, in our religious country, is the shameful indifference of so many who are insulated from harm to our many poor neighbours who remain vulnerable. The real crime, Ms Allamani is the criminal law of abortion, its unevenness, its unfairness, its irrationality and above all, the havoc it causes in so many lives every year.

Aspire Team
Port-of-Spain