ASPIRE speaks for itself

THE EDITOR: ASPIRE’s agenda focusses on promoting equitable access to information and services in reproductive health for all members of the national community.

ASPIRE is not in the business of sensationalism. We want to make a difference in maternal health, and would like to contribute to real results. Nobody but a group of committed and concerned nationals have decided that path for ASPIRE. We have issued the call for dialogue as a means to understanding and discovery of ways to accomplish the desired result of safe motherhood, safe fatherhood and secure parenthood. We would like sincere dialogue on all of these issues.

We have done the work and advanced a well-reasoned position on the impact of a law on the health of women in Trinidad and Tobago. That law does not prevent abortions. It does not regulate doctors. It does not require guidance for women considering terminations. It does not prevent back-street abortions. It is a source of great harm to women and families. And it results in substantial costs in our public hospitals. These high costs are almost totally avoidable. We tend to learn of abortion deaths because of the media. But far more pervasive than maternal mortality is maternal morbidity — the complications and pain that drag on, sometimes for a lifetime, because of unsafe abortions. To one degree or another, thousands of our women are affected every year.

Our law should be changed not because of the supposed agenda of some external influence, but because we have lived the experience of its harmful effects on our mothers, sisters and wives for several decades. Our current law is openly ignored by women and doctors. It cannot be enforced. It is not in the best interest of public health. It serves no positive social purpose, and its impact is grossly inequitable. There is no rational reason for keeping that law. However we disagree, let us in good faith try to model respect for each other’s views even as we disagree. Let us together confront the issue, not each other. We trust that leaders in all political parties, as well as our legal and medical public officers will examine the ineffectiveness, the harmfulness and the inequity of our current law and find reason to review it. That is our immediate goal. We continue to hope for reasoned dialogue in which we can find common ground to save women’s lives and to promote responsible sexual behaviour. We hope too that we can work alongside all concerned to find appropriate responses.

DYLIS L MC DONALD
Project Director
ASPIRE