No acceptable reason to have an abortion

THE EDITOR: M Suite of Belle Garden, Tobago, claims that “most women in our country have at least one abortion by their 45th birthday.” Such a sweeping statement is, of course, without any supporting evidence.

Let us look at the statements made by M Suite. First, “most women.” What do we mean by that? At the very least, it means that more than one in every two women - let’s say, at least six out of every ten women, have at least one abortion between the ages of, say 15 and 45. Can anyone really believe this? Given the fact that abortion is illegal in this country, and therefore, there are no reports, no records, of how many abortions are performed in any year, let alone the past 30 years, how can we know how many women have had abortions? This statement is simply self-serving.

Secondly, let us look at the statement “even with modern contraceptives, a period of at least 30 years of sexual activity is likely to result in at least one unplanned pregnancy.” Now, this statement, also, makes conclusions that are unsupported. It presupposes that our women are all sexually active from age 15. Further it presupposes that “unplanned” pregnancies will be ended by abortion. There are many, many people — both men and women — alive today in Trinidad who were the result of “unplanned” pregnancies. I prefer to refer to such pregnancies as “surprise pregnancies”. Many surprise babies are, after the initial shock, welcomed — as they should be. Anyone, of course, can claim anything they feel like. But, we must remember that pro-abortion people in other countries have made similar statements for one reason and one reason only — to deceive the general public into thinking that making abortion legal would be a good thing.

Thirdly, there is the claim that “the current restrictive law is demonstrably harmful to poor women”. This, of course is totally untrue. While women may, indeed, suffer harm from illegal abortions, it is not the law that is causing this — it is the abortionists. If we are to believe claims made by ASPIRE, most, if not all, abortionists in Trinidad and Tobago are doctors. ASPIRE claims that an estimated 60 percent of the medical profession perform abortions. If this is true — again, we have no clear evidence supporting this claim, it follows that should abortion be legalised, it would be these same members of the medical profession that would be performing legal abortions. What does that say about how “safe” legal abortions would be? To me it is clear that, if what ASPIRE claims is true, then our medical profession is totally inept! After all, they are responsible for the claimed high rate of mortality and morbidity caused by the so-called “unsafe” illegal abortions!

The problem of illegal abortions is the fact that the law is not being enforced. If a few of the abortionists were prosecuted, found guilty, and sentenced to prison, I am sure that the number of abortionists active in this country would be decimated. I am in favour of reviewing the law but, what I propose is that the sentence for being found guilty of performing, or assisting in the performance of an abortion should be a minimum of 10 years hard labour for a first offence, and double that for any subsequent offence. In addition, there should be a fine of $50,000 in the case of a first offence, and $100,000 for any subsequent offence with the money being used to provide the necessary support services for crisis pregnancy centres. Of course, any doctor found guilty of performing an abortion should be disbarred for practising medicine ever again.

Fourthly, is the claim that “in reality an abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy is several times safer than delivery at term, under comparable medical conditions.” This is standard pro-abortion devil-speak (this is not a typo!). The unceremonious ripping to pieces of a tiny child in his mother’s womb results in the total destruction of the baby, and can result in many complications for the mother. These complications include infertility, an increased danger of ectopic pregnancy in the future, possible damage to the uterus, to say nothing of the psychological dangers of this evil act. Let us make no mistake, abortion is an evil act.

There is absolutely no acceptable reason for any woman to have an abortion, and no acceptable reason for any doctor to perform one. Fifthly, the claim by M Suite and others who are urging that we legalise abortion, that “nobody seeks to promote abortion” is deceitful in the extreme. They claim that if we legalise abortion the number of abortions will decrease! What arrant nonsense! If such a thing was possible, then we should legalise rape, kidnapping, murder, and any other crime we want to decrease!

JOAN MOORE
Carenage