The Sunday Mail
“It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish . . . I feel the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child . . . A direct killing of the innocent child, ‘murder’ by the mother herself . . . And if we can accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?
SUNDAY DEBATE with Jephiter Tsamwi
How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love… And we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts . . .” Mother Teresa
Abortion, it is such a sensitive topic whose debate has survived decades of varying degrees of contestation. It is one such a legal issue that always ignites a sharp ethical dilemma, today, tomorrow and probably forever. Even the greatest novelist, Shakespeare, does mention about abortion in one of his novel, Hamlet. Today, in 2015, the debate rages on, this time not on the usual women’s rights mantra but from the conservatives who believe in the respect of the dignity of life, including that of the unborn baby.
Perhaps, what needs to be stressed is that the controversy on abortions, especially for those who are so much against the practise rests their argument on a tripod of fundamental issues that also remain subject to challenge and counter-arguments.
The first premise is scientific, the second is moral, and the third is legal. They too, like Mother Teresa, believe any pretence that abortion is not killing is a shameless sign of human congruity, and perhaps the most convincing evidence of a world whose humanity has gone to the dogs.
For now let’s examine these three issues. Our biology teachers, yes back in high schools, clearly gave us an analogy that without doubt proves that a foetus has characteristics that classifies it as a living organism including metabolising, food for energy, and reacting to stimuli among others.
To add on to that, the DNA of the foetus is distinctly human and also different from its human parents. Perhaps this is why, especially those from the religious circles believe abortion is murder because scientifically speaking, a foetus is a living human but at a different stage of growth.
Former US president, Ronal Reagan even supports this when he said, “Unless and until it can be proven that the unborn child is not a living entity, then its right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness must be protected.”
Let us bring this much closer home. Pro-life and pro-choice agree that a foetus is a human being at some stage of development while pro-choice supporters argue that the unborn is not intrinsically valuable because of its lack of ability to reason and self-awareness.
This remains a classic view, but it becomes highly questionable, if not a rhetoric full of empty narratives if we consider that there are many cases of retardation in adults where a lack of self-awareness or ability to reason is present as well but there is no such law that permits the termination of the mentally handicapped. So should a foetus be killed because it is not yet reasoning?
While morality has been the second major factor that is so consistently cited each time defence against the adoption or promotion of abortion is cited, it is one such argument that can easily be defeated in any reasonable and professional discussion forum.
Last year, the Students and Youth Working on Reproductive Health Action Team (SAYWHAT) held a students and youth conference at Great Zimbabwe University, itself a forum that brought the brains and the emotions in one room for a two-day productive time that shaped the discourse on sexual and reproductive health issues in this country.
It was during this conference that one young lady stood up and confidently said, “What is moral to you is not moral to me.” She might have said with a great deal of emotional hatred to the views of the other camp in the talk show on abortion but her views were not in any way out of this world. In fact in this era, individual freedoms and liberties matters more than collective identity. It is a world that has considerable respect to the rights and wishes of every individual, every life and the dignity of human life.
Critics, however, find some disturbing contradiction in this pillar of argument not because of conservative moralism but in the not so true attempt to reduce the role of cultural beliefs, identity and the spirit of ubuntuism that is globally recognised as one of Africa’s uniting force to something that does not warrant rational recognition.
The question that remains unanswered is; Is it moral to abort or not? However, it is a person’s choice to put morals before choice or vice versa. Certainly there are issues that are more important than safeguarding moral values at the expense of one’s choice, destiny and liberty.
Perhaps the most common pro-life argument that counters efforts to legitimise or sanitise abortion comes from the legal perspective. Again it is not just about the much plausible provisions in our Criminal Law Codification Act which gives options and conditions under which abortion is permissible by law.
Rather it is about safeguarding what some generally regard as the fundamental human rights; that if all humans are entitled to rights including the right to life, the law must protect the right to life of all humans no matter the conditions, stage of development or any form of classification.
In this democratic era, it is strong argument that cannot be pushed to the periphery whatever the cost and for whatever selfish interest of any individual.
This is however the major source of contestation. If the unborn child has the right to be protected, so does the mother in terms of her rights to choice and individual liberties.
Abortion is by no means an easy decision to take. It is an option that a person usually opts for owing to either total absence of alternatives or the lack of counselling. But that does not mean we can assume that every person who opts for abortion has no other option.
However, circumstances differ, situations vary and outside the conditions stipulated by law, are there other issues that can legitimise or are meaningful enough for a person to abort?
Some have argued that abortion can actually be in the best interest of the child. In these difficult times, there are critics who argue that if a person does not have the means to take care or provide for that child, then better abort than bring life to mother earth where the child will regret ever being born in this kind of a world.
Perhaps what we should focus on, collectively as a society, is first to ensure that young women and women in general are educated enough, they know about contraception, and make informed choices.
Abortion is a secondary problem; evidence of failed mechanisms that would have prevented the pregnancy in the first place. As a nation we need to invest more in non-judgemental pursuit of fulfilling the rights of women and at the same time emphasising prevention of any sexual and reproductive health related challenges faced today
Above all, love, understanding each other, respect of human dignity, choice and liberties will always give us transformative solutions to our varying challenges of the society.
◆ Jephiter Tsamwi is an independent writer based in Harare. He can be contacted on [email protected]
