DR Derrick Aarons, consultant bioethicist and family physician, has warned legislators against legitimising abortion arguing that the decision should be left to moral belief and individual conscience.

Speaking at a meeting of the Joint Select Committee of Parliament deliberating the controversial report of the Abortion Policy Review Advisory Group recently, Aarons contended that "legal moralism should not play a role in so personal and individualistic a matter".

"The decision whether or not to have an abortion should be left to individual moral conscience rather than being a matter for legislation by the state," Aarons, who was the first trained bioethicist working in Jamaica and the convenor and founding president of the Bioethics Society of the English-speaking Caribbean (BSEC), argued.

Aarons said he feared that if embryos or foetuses are accorded full legal and moral rights as human beings or 'persons', several consequences might ensue.

"Persons could 'police' women's behaviour during pregnancy to be sure they do not smoke or drink or do anything that could harm the foetus or doctors could hesitate to treat pregnant women for some conditions because the particular treatments could impact embryos or foetuses in an unknown way and expose them to potential liability claims," he said.

He said granting embryos full rights raised a number of disturbing possibilities and questioned whether this would mean that frozen embryos - for example in the fertility clinic at the University of the West Indies - have the right to claim gestation in a woman's body because they have a right to grow and develop.

"Would each frozen embryo be regarded as a dependent (for tax benefits or other claims) or if the parent dies prematurely would the frozen embryo have a claim on that parent's estate? A new legal field of 'maternal/embryo' law could develop," Aarons reasoned.

In the end, the bioethicist said while he agreed that the 'embryo is alive, it ought not to be accorded the full status of
a person'.

In the meantime, Aarons noted that Jamaica's social reality was such that 'abortion is an endemic practice which should not be ignored nor condemned'.

"The decision to abort should not be taken lightly but rather should be well considered and it should be left to moral beliefs and individual conscience. The law should not seek to legislate moral values and make would-be criminals out of persons wishing to aid in the exercising of reproductive rights and liberty," he added.

However, several other interest groups including the United Church of Jamaica and Grand Cayman appearing before the committee have argued for legalisation of abortion claiming that continued criminalisation not only puts the lives of women at risk, but has provided the perfect cover for a clandestine and dangerous market where botched abortions are routine.

Currently under the Offences Against the Person Act, persons identified as having made the slightest contribution to abortion are liable to life in prison.

Recommendations are that Sections 72 and 73 of the Act be repealed and replaced with a Termination of Pregnancy Act, which provides for training of doctors, the establishment of special clinics and medical facilities, counselling, public education and punishment of persons in breach.

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