JAMAICA’S abortion battle appeared set to heat up following accusations Monday by a group comprised of church leaders, anti-abortion lawyers and doctors that the health ministry is trying to legalise abortion in Jamaica without consulting with members of the public.

Supported by a high-powered team of ‘pro-life’ activists from overseas, including the niece of United States civil rights icon Dr Martin Luther King Jr, the group strongly urged Jamaicans to turn their backs on what they say is a renewed thrust to legalise abortion in Jamaica.

The group also called on Jamaicans to reject all explanations to justify abortion, even in instances where a woman is raped or her life is in danger.

Shirley Richards of the Lawyers Christian Fellowship (LCF) said a questionnaire regarding abortion circulated by the Ministry of Health from November 2005 indicated that the ministry, through its Abortion Policy Advisory Group, intended to legalise “safe abortions”. She said a series of public meetings promised by the Advisory Group had not taken place, and the ministry of health had told the LCF that recommendations of the Advisory Group had not yet been finalised.

Efforts by the Observer to contact the ministry of health or Dr Wynante Patterson, chair of the Abortion Policy Advisory Group, for comments were unsuccessful.

“We want to make it clear that our laws should protect the unborn. To do otherwise would further compromise and cheapen the value of life in this country,” Richards said.

She was speaking on Monday at a press conference at the Terra Nova Hotel in St Andrew, staged by the Jamaica Association of Evangelicals in association with Family Life Ministries, and assisted by the LCF.

Also supporting the anti-abortion campaigners was mother of six, Dr Alveda C King, who revealed that she had had two abortions, one of which was done by doctors without her consent. She told the gathering that the trauma of the abortions resulted in her cervix being damaged, depression and other personal problems.

“Abortion hurts women, kills babies and is bad for the economy”, said King, a minister of religion who is the daughter of Rev AD King, who like his brother was a civil rights activist and was also murdered.

There were also emotional testimonies from two other visiting US activists, Pastor Rhona Arias and Yvette Murray, both of whom related their emotional and physical pain resulting from having done abortions.

Gynaecologist Dr Doreen Brady-West, representing a group of concerned medical doctors, said no evidence had been put forward to support the view that a large number of abortions were performed to save the lives of mothers.

“The majority of abortions are done in Jamaica because it is socially, morally or financially inconvenient for a woman to bear a child,” Brady-West said.

Explaining that an unborn baby has a beating heart at five weeks, among other milestones, Dr Brady-West suggested that a foetus became an individual human being from conception, which takes place in the first 72 hours.

Her colleague gynaecologist Dr Clive Lai advised women who had been raped to visit a doctor immediately after the ordeal before conception takes place. He called on the media to push the message of abstinence, along with that of contraception.

Rev Peter Garth of the Jamaica Association of Evangelicals urged the church to take greater responsibility in assisting mothers who decided to carry unwanted pregnancies, or in assisting the adoption of their babies.