A group of pro-life activists, in a scathing accusation against the Jamaica Government, claimed that the Administration’s inaction in combating the “blood money” abortion industry is directly contributing to the alarming decline in the island’s birth rate.

In an interview with the Jamaica Observer Press Club on Friday, president of Love March Movement Dr Daniel Thomas cited a report published by National Family Planning Board (NFPB) last year indicating that Jamaica’s fertility rate dropped to a concerning 1.9 births per female in 2021.

According to the NFPB, the 1.9 birth rate means that Jamaica is slightly below the replacement fertility rate of 2.1 births per female.

Reflecting on the statistics, Dr Thomas said that “abortion must be a factor because [it] is a dire intervention in the birth of a Jamaican citizen”.

Pushing his point, he referenced Caribbean Policy Research Institute’s (CaPRI) research on the procedure, which states that up to 22,000 abortions are performed in Jamaica per year.

“We have a range of 10,000-22,000 abortions per year, conservative to liberal estimates, and that works out to 28 to 60 abortions per day in Jamaica,” said Thomas.

“For every three children born in Jamaica there is one or two that are killed in the womb. That’s the serious situation that we are in, so if we want to address the demographic winter that we are in and put our nation on a trajectory for life…all we have to do is offer the resources and say we will come alongside women,” he said, adding “we would not be in the situation we are in now if the abortion issue was taken off the table.”

Abortion is a hot topic in Jamaica, with debates at both ends of the spectrum resurfacing every now and again.

In 2018 Juliet Cuthbert-Flynn, the Member of Parliament for St Andrew West Rural, made a presentation to the House regarding decriminalising abortion. She was met with strong resistance from Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship and its affiliate, Jamaica Coalition for Healthy Society, which noted that the “highest duty of the law is the protection of life”.

Fast-forward to last year, Minister of Legal and Constitutional Affairs Marlene Malahoo Forte, in her contribution to the Sectoral Debate in Parliament, said that the Government does not intend to change abortion laws in the constitution.

While the Government has said it has no intention of changing the legislation, the group is adamant that more needs to be done to stop the “blood money” industry — which illegally operates in Jamaica — and provide support for women in crisis pregnancies.

Dr Thomas said that, based on his investigations, the average cost to have an abortion in Jamaica is $30,000, with some quoting figures as high as $50,000.

“It’s blood money,” Christina Milford, founder of Pregnancy Resource Centre of Jamaica in Montego Bay, St James, told the Observer.

“They build plazas and all kinds of stuff out of the blood money of our children,” she added, visibly distressed.

Milford recalled a poignant conversation with a friend who is also a doctor, which unveiled the dark reality of Jamaica’s abortion industry, likening its operations to other profit-driven sectors.

“He said, ‘Abortion in Jamaica is an industry and an establishment in the same way that tourism and bauxite are.’ He said ‘If you pull that string, you would see how many things tumble behind it.’ I remembered that, and I remembered yesterday I was praying, and I said ‘God, whatever needs to tumble, let it tumble,” she said.

“Our children have a right to life. They are unborn, but they’re people. We have taken personhood from the unborn baby, calling them ‘it’ and ‘thing’, and we think we can do whatever we want with it because a blob of blood is not the true [child],” said Milford.

“The crisis that we face causes us to devalue our children, but they are real and alive,” she stressed, restating her hope to see the industry crumble.

To address the issue directly, Dr Thomas and Milford partnered with 40 Days for Life, an international pro-life organisation that peacefully prays outside of abortion centres in hopes of changing the minds of women intending to abort their unborn children, bringing the movement to Jamaica.

Since the start of the campaign on February 14 they have saved six unborn children, with hopes to increase that number before the end of the campaign on March 24.

Dr Thomas said that the group has a holistic approach to its pro-life movement, providing emotional, financial, and mental support to the women who decide not to abort.

“Tell the abortionists to leave Jamaica — their time is up,” said Dr Thomas.