TT a new battleground in abortion war

PRO-CHOICE advocates are bracing for a weakening in abortion rights in the United States and are turning their attention to the English-speaking Caribbean as possible new territory for abortion on demand. Moves to legalise abortions throughout the region have intensified over the last few years just as laws are being introduced by the pro-life Republican Administration of US President George W Bush that offer more protection to the unborn.

Three decades after the landmark 1973 US Supreme Court ruling Roe vs Wade, which opened the door to abortion on demand in the US, the recent signing into law of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act has raised concern among abortion rights advocates that the groundwork is being laid for a significant reduction in abortions. This new law was introduced following the arrest and trial of Scott Peterson for the murder of his wife Laci and their unborn son. It makes it a crime to harm a foetus while committing an offence — a move that pro-choice supporters say undermines abortion rights by giving foetuses separate legal status.

Currently before the US Congress is the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act which requires that doctors performing abortions on women at least 20 weeks pregnant tell them that foetuses feel pain and offer mothers pain relievers for the foetuses. In addition, there have been significant changes in federal and state laws across the US to deny Medicaid funding to cover abortions; requiring parental notification for minors seeking abortions; and outlawing late-term abortions. These developments are being closely followed by activists on both sides of the issue here in Trinidad and Tobago where intense lobbying is taking place for legalisation of abortion. In a statement in commemoration of the 32nd anniversary of Roe vs Wade on January 22, local pro-choice group ASPIRE noted recent restrictions on access to abortions in the US and declared: “This year, many pro-choice individuals and groups wondered whether this would be the last time this anniversary would be celebrated.”

The group, which has links to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), a major force in the multi-billion dollar US abortion industry, maintains that abortions are already legal in TT and they are lobbying for it to become more “broadly legal”. They are contending that the Patrick Manning Administration, which has to date not responded to calls for abortion law reform, is ignoring “the plight of poor women who in their hundreds, month after month, enter our public hospitals for care following unsafe abortions”. According to ASPIRE, their aim is to “improve the sexual and reproductive health of our nation”. They are campaigning for “decriminalisation” of abortions.

But even as they continue their pro-abortion campaign in TT, members of ASPIRE are keeping a close watch on two significant developments in the US which could have a major impact on the abortion industry there. One involves Norma McCorvey, better known as “Jane Roe”, who recently petitioned the US Supreme Court to reverse the Roe vs Wade ruling. The other is the possibility that Supreme Court judges to be appointed during this second Bush term may impose even more limits on abortions. Those developments are also being closely followed by local pro-life groups. According to Fr George Pritchett of the Emmanuel Community, a Roman Catholic group at the forefront of this country’s pro-life movement, abortion advocates are bracing for an overturn of Roe vs Wade and may be looking to expand their activities into developing countries.

“Their market is dwindling. If you look at Planned Parenthood of America, they had 160 clinics. That number is reduced now,” he told Sunday Newsday. According to Fr Pritchett, abortion advocates are now “going out into the wider world”. He compared this to a situation that developed some years ago when the IUD was banned in the US because of the large number of lawsuits filed involving complications with that contraceptive device. Subsequently, aggressive moves were made to promote use of the IUD, particularly in developing countries. Fr Pritchett believes pro-choice activists are actively seeking markets outside of the US for the very lucrative abortion industry. Members of the Emmanuel Community and other pro-life organisations are currently mobilising for a possible intensification of pro-abortion efforts in this country.

At the Emmanuel Community in Woodbrook, where the motto is “In defence of life from conception to natural death”, pro-life counselling is offered to people considering having an abortion. The group also runs seminars on chastity, respect for human life and dignity and against the practice of abortion. Founding member of the group, Violet D’Ornellas, who has been actively involved in the pro-life movement for more than two decades, told Sunday Newsday in all that time she has only encountered two women faced with crisis pregnancies who did not want their babies. Most, she explained, are facing terrible trauma connected with their condition and want to get rid of those problems rather than the baby. “When girls come here with an unplanned pregnancy they are facing great problems. They might have been thrown out of their home, there is great shame . . . they feel they are losing everything.

“What Emmanuel does is ask them what is their need. We listen to their needs and we supply them. Any need you have, we are here,” she said. D’Ornellas, who is convinced that women and girls would rather give birth than undergo an abortion, believes this country is just one battleground in the campaign to allow greater access to abortions in developing countries. She has noted a trend of placing abortion facilities in low-income areas and sees no value in legalising the practice in this country where the current birth-rate is well below acceptable levels.

A young woman recalls her abortion experience:

I felt life rapidly leaving me

DIANNE S (not her real name) became pregnant for the first time when she was 20 years old. Although she knew that the baby’s father “wasn’t going to stay in my life,” she kept the baby, a boy who is now seven years old. However, when she found herself pregnant again five years later, Dianne decided to have an abortion. She recalled that the baby’s father was “in total dismay” and begged her to reconsider. “He cried, begged, he even threatened to tell my mother, but I was headstrong in my decision. He just wanted his baby and I was just doing the complete opposite.

“We met one morning along the East/West Corridor and tried to find the clinic by the shady directions I was given. Everywhere we had gone to, it was just the wrong place. The father seemed glad but I wasn’t giving up at all. “Eventually we found the hole-in-the-wall office. The name on the building wasn’t what was inside. It was set up like a regular doctor’s office. The absolute difference was, in this office there were only women. Sitting a little distance from each other gave the feeling like we were all there for many different ailments. Unknowing to me, we were all there to murder our babies. “The father was asked for identification. I don’t know what. I was just asked my name. Nobody tried to disuade me from my plans. The nurse kept asking me if I was ready as she was seeing the battle ensuing between the father and myself.

“Finally, I gave in and went into a little, poorly-lit room. She just roughly told me to get undressed, and she prepared my body for my child’s execution. As she did her job, I felt life rapidly leaving me. “I never saw the doctor until the nurse told him I was ready. Then I was whisked away into another room. Here is where it was done. I was placed on a cold table with a very bright bulb shining down on me. “The day in question was a Carnival Saturday. The first thing the doctor asked was: ‘So you playing mas? You don’t look so nah. In two two’s it will be over.’ “I was given an injection, I believe for the pain, and the massacre started. He placed my feet on stirrups and held the light into me. He pushed and probed as much as he could. I felt his knuckles touch my womb. He sees me silently crying and his words of consolation were: Don’t worry. Soon it will be all over and back to normal.’

“He plugged in a loud sounding machine that had a suctioning effect. I saw him test it on the palm of his hand. He told me this will hurt only like a little pin stick but as he roughly inserted it into me, the pain just grew stronger and stronger. He stopped and it seemed like he cleansed the suction valve and he inserted it again. “He tried hopelessly to hold conversation with me but nothing worked. All I could glimpse was a stainless steel container and lots of bloody cotton swabs. He apparently never wanted me to see anything. When I would try to see, he roughly said: ‘Look the other way.’ “When he finished draining me dry he told me to go and lie down in the first room, he’ll see me after. I went back there not even able to walk. I was placed on antibiotics and given creams to use. Up to this day I never used any.

As the father and I left the office, no words were spoken. He was clearly devastated and in pain. I was also. From then on, that abortion caused a wedge to come between us and it is still growing. “I have been to confession many times repeating the same act, but the (baby’s) father’s forgiveness I will never get. “At Emmanuel, Sr Violet saw me after the pain had already eaten my entire soul. I was prayed with, my baby was baptised and placed into the arms of the Blessed Mother Mary. “This has caused a serious void in my life, as the father wants nothing to do with me and has told me it is on account of that. A lot of time has passed, almost two years, and still no forgiveness. He has since gathered the courage to leave me, but my memories of my unborn child will live on in my heart until the day I die and see her face to face in the kingdom of God.”