Dear Editor,

I read your editorial of Sunday, March 14, “Why we’ll take Ms Christina Milford over Minister Spencer”. You report that Spencer urged members of the Joint Select Committee of Parliament on Abortion (JSCOPA) to keep the contents of the Abortion Policy Review Advisory Group (APRAG) close to their chest.

Was this all the minister could advise, after four public consultations on abortion, one each at the University of the West Indies at Mona, the Montego Bay Civic Centre, the Morant Villa Hotel in Morant Bay and Glenmuir High School in May Pen? What were the public’s responses at these consultations and how have they informed the JSCOPA chaired by Minister Spencer?

Though I was present only for the consultation in Montego Bay, I have been reliably informed that the other consultations gave the same resounding no to legalising intentional abortion. At the Montego Bay consultation, Rev Mr Francis Tulloch recommended that a referendum on the matter of abortion be put to the people. Was this included in the JSCOPA’s recommendations to Parliament?

Was hugging up APRAG, the only advice given by Spencer after the pro-life presentations made before him in Parliament by Dr Brady-West, Fr Richard Ho Lung, Monsignor Ramkissoon and Monsignor Richards and by Ms Christina Milford?

Eighty-seven thousand Jamaicans signed a petition against the legalisation of abortion and this was submitted to the JSCOPA. Was this hugged up too?

With all this anti-hugging information, how is it that Minister Spencer has come to say what he said? Could this be a case of escalation of commitment, whereby one exhibits an increased commitment to a previous decision despite negative information? Or is it really possible for an open-minded person to enter the decision-making process and put out a result opposite to the net weight of the data collected?

Science has long distanced itself from the matter of abortion as it deems the question of when do human beings begin as metaphysical and hence beyond its scope. Why then were there so many medical doctors on APRAG? Why did APRAG have only one clergyman on it? Why was the chair of APRAG, the late Dr Wynante Patterson, not correct when she openly admitted in this newspaper that APRAG was not looking into whether abortion was wrong or right yet was proceeding to make recommendations on it? Was this not textbook time wasting? How does one arrive at a stage of planning an action when one does not know if said action is wrong or right? That which Ruddy Spencer has advised to be hugged is void of morality, so said the late Dr Wynante Patterson.

All intentional abortions are wrong, even in rape, incest and even when cleverly juxtaposed against the life of the mother.

Romain G Stewart

Montego Bay

romainstewart@inbox.com