“Her son was first known to her as a sense of unease

a need to cry

for little reasons and a metallic tide 

rising in her mouth each morning.

Such signs made her know

that she was not alone in her body.

She carried him full term

tight up under her heart.”

With such potency, emotional depth and an inclination to subdue one in the palms of joy, happiness and optimism-these lines by one of my favourite literary icons, Lorna Goodison convey the essence of a woman finding out that she is with child. Pregnancy can either break or make you. It can be the most fulfilling experience in a woman’s life, the most catastrophic and it can even fill women with a sense of disinterest in the whole process. And guess what? THAT IS OKAY!

It is fine if you are over the moon and it’s equally fine if you are not and want to terminate the pregnancy. Callous, murderous, nefarious and wicked-yes those may be your thoughts but the decision to keep the life inside the depths of your being, is not mine, the government’s, the religious fanatics, or anyone else’s. This is a choice that you make with yourself, the unborn fetus and God (for the religious ones in the room).

We teach our girls to aspire to marriage, child rearing, homemaking and the plethora of domesticated tasks that society chooses to mark on us, like sores on the body. However, why not teach our girls that marriage, child rearing and homemaking are not the sole tenants of womanhood and femininity? You can live and not have children. You can live and be single all the days of your life or simply indulge in romantic escapades at your leisure. And you can live and not wash, cook, clean like Betty Crocker-because life will go on. The sea will not part nor will the heavens blaze forth at the sight of your singleness. There are so many facets and complexities to womanhood and femininity that we have been socialized and programmed to discard or suppress because it is not polite, or befitting of a female.

Who died and made society, over bearing traditions and customs the founding fathers and scholars in the art of womanhood? Who died and made Andrew Holness and his league of archaic neanderthals in charge of what a woman does with her body? The job of the parliamentarians is to create and enforce legislation that protects and safeguards the well being of our citizens, which means WOMEN TOO.  So my question is why is there no abortion law for Jamaica? Why is it not legalized? 

Now for the religious and overly moralistic ones in the back, let me shout this one for you, since your hearing is blocked by the hands of Koalemos the Greek god of stupidity or ignorance:

DON’T @ ME! From the inception of time, women have been suppressed in every way and can never truly say or do what they wants to do. A woman is a puppet, and the strings have always been pulled by someone else and even child rearing apparently must be a decision that she cannot make for herself. You may quote your pro-life chants and attack with Exodus 20 vs 13 (KJV) “Thou shalt not kill” or  Proverbs 6:16-17 ” These six [things] doth the LORD hate: yea, seven [are] an abomination unto him:A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood” and other biblical backlash. Oh well!

That is quite fine. It still does not change the fact that this decision is between the woman and a higher power. Lest I forget, for the ones clinging to the branches of morals- please let go because Jamaica is in no position to  brag about how much we love and care about our children and our people when the crime rate is through the roof and recent talks about legalizing obeah is on the table.

In addition, morals are one’s own personal beliefs; therefore what I believe on a particular subject will not always be the same as your thoughts and such is life. Parliamentarians again I say, we can talk about legalizing obeah- all in the name of ‘cultural appreciation’ and ‘connecting with ancestry that was washed out by the Europeans’. Albeit that Obeah delves into the supernatural world where spirits beyond any State of Emergency can tackle and demanding so many extremes that persons could be sacrificing anything that moves just to ensure their soothsayers grant their desires. But you cannot draft a bill; establish a sanitized, clean, sterile facility or two with highly trained doctors, specialists, councilors and therapists to perform precise, safe terminations? IT’S ABOVE ME NOW! The double standard and duplicity is so uncanny.

We have hoards of students leaving UWI Med School, social workers and an array of human resources are at our fingertips, yet we will sit and allow women to use hangers to claw out the fetus and in turn, hurt themselves.

We would rather leave them in shoddy back alleys where the only antiseptic is a flask of rum and the only hope of a gynecologist is an old woman with ‘years of experience’ and (I say this with every inch of sarcasm and disdain). Not to mention how expensive it may be for a lackluster ‘operation’. As such, this is why it is paramount that a law be put in place to legalize the operation and LEGAL state of the art facilities to be constructed so that we do not have any more Gerri Sanotoro’s on our hands.

*Hey Siri, who is Gerri Santoro* 

*Siri: “Gerri Santoro was an American woman who died from an illegal abortion in 1964. She went on to become the symbol and face of the pro-choice movement”

Clear now?

How many other women and girls must be subjected to this pain and suffering and trauma? Of course it is easy for you to say that women and girls should plan, use condoms and other contraceptives, abstain. I agree, prevention is better than cure, but it is always easier to judge, advise and give our responses when we are not in the situation, when we were never there.

Moreover, can we move from the notion that one has to be raped or the life of the mother is at stake in order for us to give our signed and sealed approval for abortions? According to the Infant Life Preservation Act passed in the UK, it states “Abortion carried out in good faith [is] for the sole purpose of  preserving the life of the mother” However, the likes of Margaret Sanger, Stella Browne, Janet Chance who were the radical feminists, advocates and pioneers in birth control, planned parenthood, and pro-abortion activists, did not toil and labour for the women of today to not have the right to choose-again going to the years of silence we have had to endure. Stop saying that there needs to be a traumatic experience for a woman to terminate her pregnancy-so I guess we should all be waiting to get raped in order to have an abortion?

Moreover, I am not saying let us use abortion like an eraser every time a female gets pregnant. It is not a get out of jail card. Thus, if we create a model, a law with guidelines such as mandatory counseling and other protocol for women so as to guide them into a safe procedure, then that is the progressive approach that will benefit these women. The 1973 U.S Supreme Court case of ROE v WADE was the revolution of women’s rights which gave them autonomy over their bodies. Abortion became legal in 30 states, and underlined the main principle of the right to privacy. The legal architecture and moralistic tapestry of Jamaica need to take that fresh outlook and be shaken to give women the right over their bodies in clean and sterile facilities.

All I want for women is to have a safe procedure rather that to induce chemicals or any other noxious method. I want qualified professionals, spacious rooms, recent technologies, counseling and psychiatric personnel- rather than a matches box to operate in- unsanitary, unprofessional and risk of bleeding to death abortion.  Women deserve it, and if you are pro-life, we respect that too. But if you wouldn’t give a Rasta pork and you wouldn’t unmask a hijab from a Muslim woman, then why dictate to women what they can or cannot do to their bodies and subject them to harm? It is easy to say give the child up for adoption or foster care, but foster care and adoption (if not a private agency) are under -resourced and under- funded, and not to say,” yeah let us kill the fetus and problem solved”-but just let women choose and have a safe procedure.

#prolife #prochoice #IAMFEMINIST. 

I just want my gender to have a chance. Womanhood and femininity is not anyone else’s choice or construct but my own and I want others to have that as well. I leave a quote from my favourite writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie:

“I have chosen to no longer be apologetic for my femaleness and my femininity. And I want to be respected in all of my femaleness because I deserve to be.” ―an excerpt from We Should All Be Feminists.

— Zora Langston