In the 19th century, Jamaica enacted the Offences Against the Person Act of 1864 based on the 1861 English Act. The Act makes abortion illegal and subjects any person who intends to procure a miscarriage, unlawfully administers any poison or noxious thing, or unlawfully uses any instrument or other means to the same end to be subject to life imprisonment, with or without hard labour. Furthermore, a pregnant woman who acts in like manner concerning her pregnancy is subject to the same penalty.

On January 15, 1975, the Minister of Health Kenneth McNeil tabled Ministry Paper No 1 titled Abortion: Statement of Policy to amend the laws and clarify when an abortion would be legal in Jamaica. The minister contended that, “The present laws relating to abortion are contained partly in our common law and partly in the statute law, the Offences Against the Person Act.

“The statute law position is that it is a criminal offence to procure an unlawful abortion. Despite these severe penalties, the statute is absolutely silent on the circumstances in which an abortion would be lawful. The fact that the statute is silent in this regard is the main reason our qualified medical practitioners develop inhibitions in this area of work.”

Between 1973 and 1977, the Ministry of Health declared that almost three-quarters (74 per cent) of young adult women had their first pregnancy by their fifth year in school. The National Family Planning Board’s Reproductive Health Survey revealed that 43 per cent of these pregnancies were “mistimed” and 18 per cent were unwanted.

Based on the cases coming forward, the ministry suspected many of these young women resorted to unsafe measures to dispose of their pregnancies as they were not in a position to take care of a baby. To prevent more women from physically harming themselves, the Ministry of Health opened the Fertility Management Unit at the Glen Vincent Health Centre in Cross Roads in 1976. However, there was no legal framework to support it.

By 1991 the ministry outlined specific terms for selecting patients to terminate a pregnancy from the Victoria Jubilee Hospital, mainly to preserve the physical and mental health of the mother.

In keeping with the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goal of improving maternal health, John Junor, the minister of health, introduced the “morning after pill” Postinor-2 in 2003 and established an Abortion Policy Review Advisory Group in 2005 to reduce maternal mortality (and morbidity) in Jamaica by three-quarters by 2015.

Dr A Wynante Patterson chaired this group, which provided an interim report. However, the Government advised the group in 2006 that they would make no decisions until the advisory group held public consultations.

On February 19, 2007, Dr Patterson submitted the Abortion Policy Review Advisory Group Final Report to the Minister of Health Horace Dalley.

The report made several recommendations and pointed to the fact that the Victoria Jubilee and the Cornwall Regional hospitals were experiencing a relatively high incidence of young, poor, unemployed women who had resorted to the black market to access medically induced methods to terminate their pregnancies and needed treatment for near-fatal effects from complications arising from their actions: “At the Victoria Jubliee, between March 1 to August 31, 2005, 641 patients were admitted to Ward 5, 75 per cent were unemployed and 27 per cent were engaged in low-paying employment, and all had inner-city addresses. Thirty-five per cent of patients admitted were teenagers; seven per cent said they had attempted a termination of pregnancy (TOP); 38 per cent admitted to having had a previous TOP; 30 per cent had had two or more previous abortions; 64 per cent of the patients had gestation periods of 12 weeks or less; 62 per cent had induced the abortion medically; 86 per cent of the patients had D&C [dilation and curettage] in hospital for the treatment of incomplete abortions; four patients had to have abdominal surgery; and 20 per cent were transfused with blood or blood products. During this period, no patient died, but morbidity was high.” (Abortion Policy Review Advisory Group Final Report, 2007)

As a result of the findings, the report made several recommendations. In the main, to repeal the relevant sections of the Offences Against the Person Act and substitute it with a civil law titled Termination of Pregnancy Act, which would clearly state the conditions under which the medical termination of a pregnancy will be lawful in Jamaica.

Again, nothing happened, and the Government changed.

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY REMAIN THE SAME

On January 15, 2008, the Minister of Health Rudyard Spencer tabled the Abortion Policy Review Advisory Group Final Report in Parliament, and on March 27, the House appointed a special select committee to review and consider the recommendations. It comprised Rudyard Spencer, chairman; Marisa Dalrymple Philibert; Shahine Robinson; Ernest Smith; Desmond Mair; St Aubyn Bartlett; Dr Fenton Ferguson; Lisa Hanna; Natalie Headley; Dorothy Lightbourne; Dwight Nelson; Aundré Franklin; Hyacinth Bennett; Sandrea Falconer; Mark Golding; and Norman Grant.

The committee met with a broad group of stakeholders and listened to and debated proposals between July 3, 2008 and March 26, 2009, with four additional meetings on December 10, 2009 and the last on March 11, 2010. A draft report with recommendations was submitted.

Chief among the advice was to repeal sections 72 and 73 of the Offences Against the Person Act and substitute it with a civil law titled Termination of Pregnancy Act. The report never made it to a debate. No explanations were given.

Subsequently, the Parliament appointed another joint select committee in 2018, chaired by Reverend Ronald Thwaites, to consider the report from the joint select committee established in 2008.

Coming out of this committee’s deliberations, a new report was tabled in Parliament in March 2020 but was never debated. Parliament dissolved on August 11, 2020, and the report has not been brought back on the order paper.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “Abortion is a common health intervention and safe when carried out using a method recommended by WHO, appropriate to the pregnancy duration, and by someone with the necessary skills.”

Furthermore, there are 73 million induced abortions that happen worldwide annually. Six out of 10 (60 per cent) of all unintended pregnancies and 3 out of 10 (30 per cent) of all pregnancies end in induced abortion.

Nearly 50 years and several ministers of health later, there has been no legislative decision since Ministry Paper No 1 was tabled in 1975 to give women legal protection for the termination of a pregnancy in Jamaica, and the 1864 Offences Against the Person Act remains in play. Could it be an effort to abort the agenda?

In this parliamentary term, the Government boasts about the record number of female Members of Parliament on their side of the House. But there’s nothing on record for advancing women’s issues in the country. While we don’t need women to advance women’s issues, we need people interested in women’s issues to move them.

My public and parliamentary stance on this matter are well known. I courageously support the mission of abortion rights for all women; a woman’s right to choose what happens to her body should not make her a criminal.

This debate is more urgent than ever and needs to be put back on the parliamentary agenda. It’s 2022 and high time we give Jamaican women the freedom to choose what happens to their bodies reproductively.

Lisa Hanna is Member of Parliament for St Ann South Eastern, People’s National Party spokesperson on foreign affairs and foreign trade, and a former Cabinet member.