JAMAICA’S women’s groups are yet to formulate clear positions on abortion, despite the advancement of plans by government to legalise the termination of pregnancies.

But individual views sought by the Sunday Observer suggest that gender and human rights advocates are strongly supportive of its legalisation – in specified circumstances – with conditions that speak to the type, and safety, of procedures that doctors use, and accessibility.

“They should legalise it. That way we will not have so many women getting abortions done by quacks, which can kill them,” said Beryl Weir, executive director of the Women’s Centre of Jamaica Foundation, which runs a school for pregnant teenagers.

“I have heard many horror stories.”

In fact, one view emerging from within the Women’s Media Watch (MWM) is that government should add the procedure to its list of services at health clinics, at reduced cost, to make abortions affordable to urban and rural poor women.

“The present restrictive criminal law does not seem to prevent abortions,” says one view of the varied positions within WMW.

“It forces women to go underground and seek unhealthy terminations.”

Doctors polled by the Sunday Observer quote prices of $8,000 to $14,000 for terminations.

Nancy Anderson, executive director of the International Jamaica Council for Human Rights, is pro-choice, but she also posits that the father of the child should have a say in the decision to terminate, an argument likely to find favour with subscribers to the theory of male marginalisation in Jamaican society.

Anderson, however, was more vocal on the issue of counselling, pre and post-procedure.

“There should be mandatory counselling, not just for the impact on the child which has life, but also because the child was not brought into existence,” said the human rights attorney.

“I believe in choice, but that choice should not be made without professional counselling.”

Carol Sewell, president of Woman Inc, told the Sunday Observer that her organisation is yet to formulate a single view on abortion, as did WMW director Hilary Nicholson.

But, though initially reluctant to comment, Nicholson later supplied a compendium of individual views of persons in her group – indicating largely pro-choice leanings – saying that while WMW does not have a single position on abortion, there are shared views within the group.

“Abortion could be made more broadly legal here, if certain conditions under which they are available are strictly adhered to, and if there is public education for women, caregivers, people, et cetera, about these provisions and women’s rights to choose,” said the one-page WMW document.

“The most important benefits would be that there would be fewer ‘quacks’ that perform dangerous illegal abortions, and more women’s lives would be spared, their bodies are less likely to be damaged by botched abortions and they could then have normal pregnancies later if they wish.”

There are some eight established methods of induced abortions that fall under the category of either medical or surgical.

But the more extremist ‘right-to-lifers’ also add a third category, chemical, under which they include contraceptives, such as the ‘morning after pill’.

One anti-abortion site (www.lifesite.net) refers to some contraceptives as ‘abortifacients’, saying birth control pills sometimes cause abortions.

Anderson and Weir advocate that doctors should be specifically trained to do the procedures, a view that squares with the official position of the Medical Association of Jamaica, which has formally proposed that abortionists be certified.

Weir is pro-legalisation; her concern is the maternal mortality rate, which currently runs at about 95 per 100,000 live births, 16 per cent of which are adolescents.

“They should be trained to do abortions and counselling so that (the procedure) can be done under safe and ideal conditions by a trained physician,” she said.

“We are still at a stage where women are forced to do backroom abortions using extreme measures to terminate the pregnancy, which is sometimes life-threatening because some women go to doctors who are not trained to do abortions and it results in sepsis (infections), or the woman may die.”

Though the medical fraternity says a baby is ‘viable’, that is, capable of surviving outside the womb, at week 20, some WMW members say the choice to abort should be made within six to eight weeks of the pregnancy; and that abortion should never be used as a form of family planning, but remain an option to be exercised under extenuating circumstances, such as incest or rape, or on medical grounds.

Still, others in the group take a more liberalist view, saying the debate should not be pursued on moral grounds, but discussed instead within the broader context of “what is best for the society, as a whole, as well as for the woman.”

The Bureau of Women’s Affairs says its views on abortion is the same as the Patterson administration’s, that terminations are illegal but allowed under circumstances where the pregnancies result from rape or incest.

“We share the same view as the government until a discussion is held with various stakeholders and policy is changed,” said Heather Webster, acting executive director of the bureau, a state agency that falls under the Office of the Prime Minister.

davidsont@jamaicaobserver.com