Debate: Review of abortion laws

Recently, newspapers have featured articles on abortion. The main arguments by proponents are that legal abortions will save money and that Malawi will not lose lives to unsafe abortions. I hold opposite views for the following reasons.

Pregnancy is a choice. Pregnancy, with exception to very rare cases of rape, is a choice. It is not a disease and it is preventable. I believe it is insulting women’s intelligence to suggest they are helpless victims and that a favourable law needs to come to their rescue. Women should not fall pregnant in the first place if they do not want babies.

Secondly, laws are made usually to help people restrain from acts that can bring harm to themselves and to others. Contrary to what some activists say, Section 243 does not force women to procure unsafe abortion. Chapter 4 Section 16 of the Constitution states that “Every person has the right to life and no person shall be arbitrarily deprived of his or her life”. Unborn babies have a right to life. A pro-abortion law infringes on this supreme law.

Thirdly, it is a standard principle of medical ethics that if there is any degree of uncertainty about life and death issues, one must vote in favour of life protection against destruction of life. The only exception is when the physical life of the mother is threatened. A pro-abortion law puts health workers, whose duty is to protect life, in an ethical dilemma in light of the Hippocratic Oath and the nurses pledge. To expect doctors and nurses to perform abortions, having taken their professional oaths, would render them unprofessional and hypocrites. Just because abortion is legal in some countries, it does not make it morally right.

Furthermore, abortions leave psychological scars. A BBC producer who was making a television documentary about abortion revealed that women were more honest than the doctors about the emotional implication of medical abortion. Among other post-abortive syndromes, many women experience guilt, self-hatred and depression while some struggle to forgive themselves. Having an abortion is not like removing a pimple from your face.

Then there is the issue of cost factors. That we have few health personnel in Malawi is a horrible fact as our health workers are inundated with more than what they can bear treating diseases. The nurse and midwife population ratio is 1:144 000 in Malawi against the recommended 1:1 000 by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Malawi has 144 times less and a 70 percent vacancy gap. It is a crisis. Must the same overburdened personnel “treat” more people who are not sick? There is the sure possibility of losing more lives. Should government spend money on equipment and medications for something preventable? At what cost?

Theologically, there is a clear plan and a purpose for every human being from conception. This is supported by the following verses: Genesis 1:27; Jeremiah 1:5 and Luke 1:41-44. Human development is not just an anonymous, deterministic, biological mechanism, a routine proliferation of cells. The deliberate destruction of the human embryo is a grave sin and the human embryo is not disposable.

As a former fetus, I oppose abortion. I am so glad I am alive. I am so glad I was desired by my parents and was welcomed into this world. I am glad I am a son, a brother, a cousin, an uncle, a nephew, a husband, a father and a pastor. I am glad that with all my shortfalls, yet I have contributed many things positively to many people. What if I was an unwanted pregnancy and aborted?

Would it be an intelligent argument to say that because many men are convicted of theft and government spends its scarce resources to run prison services; that parents, wives and children suffer; that some prisoners die due to unfavourable conditions and that, therefore, the solution is review the current law so it does not criminalise theft?

To the God-fearing person, both life giving and life taking are divine prerogatives. The power to terminate life does not belong to the expectant mother, the midwife, the doctor, the legislator, or the pre.ent.

—The author is the resident pastor of Blantyre Baptist Church. He likes to comment on social, political and spiritual issues.