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The abortion debate: Pro-life vs pro-choice

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MANY stories have been told or written on abortion, drawing mixed and often moralistic comments.

BY PHYLLIS MBANJE

MANY stories have been told or written on abortion, drawing mixed and often moralistic comments. The average Zimbabwean considers it deliberate killing of an innocent human being and those who carry it out are often ostracised from their communities.

But other than these perceptions, there is the legal question of expanding the Termination of Pregnancy (ToP) Act to also include other groups and not limit it to rape survivors and those whose lives are under threat.

Proponents of the crusade to widen the tenets of the Act maintain that women should be allowed to walk into a clinic and have an abortion safely in the presence of qualified staff.

While the debate rages on around these very sensitive issues, which include the legal and religious ramifications, back-door abortions are still being carried out, with many women risking their lives in the process. This reporter witnessed first-hand a botched back-door abortion.

It was on a Monday evening and as dusk turned into night, someone from my neighbourhood called me. She was frantic and excitable. She wanted us to bring cameras and record the abortion, which was taking place right in the open.

“There is a girl by the roadside, we think she is trying to abort,” she said breathlessly.

I calmed her down and said I would be there in a few minutes and as I approached, I saw a group of women congregated by the roadside.

I drew closer and saw a young woman writhing in the grassy ditch alongside Latchmore Road in Mabelreign. Her face was contorted in pain.

It was getting dark, but one could tell that she was still in her early twenties and of slim built.

Her thin arms flailed in the air and occasionally, she clutched her lower belly. Helplessly, the women stood there trying to figure out her name and where she had come from, but she was in too much pain to give coherent responses.

With legs raised wide apart, she thrashed in desperation, gnashing her teeth and growling as wave after wave of pain shook her small frame.

A few witnesses said they had seen her walking along the road bent over with the pain.

“When she was a few metres from us, she suddenly threw herself on the ground and started to cry rolling in the dust. We rushed over and asked her what she was suffering from, but she wouldn’t say,” said a vendor who sells vegetables by the roadside.

But they managed to establish that she was around five months pregnant and that she had been on her way to church for prayers. She also told them she was a house help for a family a few roads away.

They managed to call the couple, which immediately rushed to the scene. They claimed that they had no idea that their maid was pregnant. She had been in their employ for less than two months.

As the story was being retold, the young woman’s groans increased and efforts to call for an ambulance proved fruitless.

A staffer at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals said they had no ambulance and besides, the hospital was a referral.

One of the women placed a cloth over the young woman’s legs and tried to calm her, but she screamed louder and said something was coming out of her lower abdomen.

Some of the women told her to push while others argued that it was too dangerous. She pushed anyhow and with one final heave, a small pink mass tumbled out.

We were all horrified and some even retreated from the scene.

“If the police come here, they will start asking questions. I do not want to be the one to answer and be dragged to the station,” one woman said.

I could tell the women sympathised with the young woman. The older ones, who still had their wits about them, drew closer and later claimed the “baby” had moved.

By then the young woman had calmed down and was busy groping in the dark for the “baby”.

Someone gave her a jersey since it was getting nippy. She was later ferried to the hospital with the foetus tucked into her small handbag. We were told that the “baby” did not make it.

This incident, sadly, will not be the last and there has been many others and quite recently, a young university student died when she tried to abort using a coat hanger.

Backyard abortions thrive in the absence of proper legislation to cater for cases that are not rape related.

The facts

What makes this topic important is that abortion contributes significantly to maternal deaths.

A third of the maternal deaths, which are nearly 3 000 every year, is due to unsafe abortions, which are clandestinely carried out in the backyards of most highly-populated suburbs in Harare.

Director for family health in the Health ministry, Bernard Madzima, told legislators at a meeting convened by the Women Action Group that the issue of abortion had become a major drawback in reducing maternal deaths.

“A fifth of the total maternal deaths are unsafe abortions, surely that is too huge a figure to ignore,” he said.

The debate

The pro-life camp generally argues that once conception is successful, a human being has been formed and should, therefore, have a right to life. They also argue that no one has the right to take another’s life.

They argue too that the foetus feels pain during the process. But what does science say.

Well, according to a fact sheet by the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the old, uninformed notions that unborn and newborn babies could not feel pain are refuted by a growing body of scientific evidence.

The institute says published scientific literature shows that unborn babies can experience pain at 20 weeks gestational age (20 weeks LMP, since last menstrual period, the foetal age estimate used by most obstetricians) or earlier.

Foetal surgeons recognise unborn babies as patients. A leading children’s hospital performed nearly 1 600 foetal surgeries between 1995 and June 2017.

Perinatal medicine now treats unborn babies as young as 18 weeks for dozens of conditions.

Pain medication for unborn patients is routinely administered as standard medical practice.

But the pro choice views abortion differently. They insist that it is a woman’s choice over the baby’s.

She is the one who gets to determine if she wants to carry the pregnancy to full term or not.

There are many reasons that are proffered. The common one is for young girls who feel having a baby early might interfere with their plans to further their education.

Even though the legislation now permits the girls to come back after birth, many feel the time lost cannot be redeemed and the responsible boy, if he is in school, gets to continue with his education, while the girl is set back a year or so to tend to the baby.

Other reasons are economic even whereby married women would also want to abort in the event they fell pregnant without planning.

From the various meetings on abortion, it seems even married women are going for backyard abortions and their reasons are mostly economic challenges, while some are in a rocky relationship and do not want to rock the boat by bringing in another baby.

The proponents also highlight the safety concerns that women will still go for backyard abortions which can be fatal.

But the larger debate falls on the legislation. In Zimbabwe, the debate fronted by women groups have been to widen the ToP Act to include other cases.

Currently, abortion in this country is only legal under Section 4 of the Act, which states that termination of a foetus is legal only when the life of the mother and her physical health is threatened or where there is a risk that the child to be born will suffer from physical or mental defects of such a nature that it will be permanently or seriously handicapped.

Illegal abortions are tried under the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act and the offenders if found guilty are liable to a fine not exceeding level 10 or imprisonment for a period not exceeding five years or both.

Abortion debates will carry on regardless of overwhelming and compelling evidence from both sides and unfortunately there is no common ground, one side has to give. Which one will it be?

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