Where’s the compassion? — Part 2
Legalists, pulpit loud-mouths cannot dictate Ja’s abortion position
Part 1 was carried in The Agenda magazine of the Sunday Observer, February 14, 2021, the following is the conclusion of the piece:
While we must take seriously the experience of minors who are impregnated, usually by forced means by way of their introduction to sexual activity, as the findings of the Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA) and now Caribbean Policy Research institute (CAPRI) have demonstrated, the question of whether these minors — who become pregnant by forced or ‘consensual’ means — can be allowed to have an abortion without the knowledge of their parents poses a serious challenge. This challenge goes as far as to the understanding of parental responsibility and rights in child-rearing, and involves considerations that are not just to be defined in narrow moral or religious categories.
And yet this is precisely the point with the way in which some of the discussion regarding the subject of abortion can be approached with tunnel vision as we lose sight of the bigger picture. What would lead a child to become pregnant and the parent(s) not be brought into the picture? Something has to be amiss with the relationship between the child and parent(s), or the parent’s understanding and exercise of the parental role, that communication of a compassionate and caring nature between parent and child is not possible. This being the case we could substitute any miscreant conduct on the part of the child for the abortion, if the pregnancy and prospect of the abortion is so perceived.
The State’s intervention in authorising an abortion for a child without parental knowledge or consent represents an attempt to address the outcome, rather than the cause, which the nation needs to address; namely, widespread failure of parenting and family relations. It has elements of an overreach by the State as it tries to address another social problem and which could have serious unforeseen consequences.
The all-or-nothing approach to the subject of abortion is not a tenable one. At one level we must intensify our positive efforts at advancing sex and family life education in our homes as a starting point, and then in our schools, while grounding it in the realities of
The views expressed are not necessarily those of the Jamaica Observer.
family life in our Caribbean nations. This educational thrust should include a focus on abstinence, faithfulness in relationships, and responsible condom usage. Within the wider society, fostering a culture of adoption and making it easier for couples and individuals to adopt babies and children, and access to fertility management facilities should be readily available to adults with such needs.
So, while not advancing a position supporting abortion as a means of birth control, neither is there any attempt to retreat from advancing the need for responsible sexual behaviour. Nevertheless, the human experiences that led to this revisiting of the laws governing abortion still exist.
The very vociferous religiously affiliated pro-life lobby in the United States of America, that also shouted their commitment to family values, were the very ones casting a blind eye and supporting policies that involved the cruel separation of infants and children from their parents; leaving a situation of traumatised children who may never be reunited with their parents. Let us not pursue that path of seeing the trees while losing sight of the forest.
While we wrestle as a society with the problem of crime and violence, we must recognise that many of the young people who are so involved are children born as a result of unwanted pregnancies, even as the society pays lip service to taking care of our unwanted babies. They stand at our traffic lights daily and they are involved in child labour; or, are just the sheer victims of neglect, abuse, and human trafficking. Currently abandoned by the society in many instances, or treated as punishment for their parents’ sexual indiscretions or irresponsibility, our position on abortion must challenge us to look at the choices we have been making as a society in relation to these living victims in our midst, and how our current modus operandi embodies and embraces life, thereby making us pro-life in its most comprehensive definition.
The year 2020 ended with the nation recording the murder of approximately 1,300 Jamaicans, not to mention the countless others who have been maimed for life, or simply traumatised by their experience of violence, so that the issue is at the top of the list of concerns for most Jamaicans. Additionally, we need to reckon with the cost to the nation’s health care budget which this violence and constant threat to humanp life generates. When, therefore, we speak of being pro-life in this nation we must be clear that it cannot be just a reference to whether we would give legal sanction to abortions, but rather how we regard every human life, living or yet unborn.
The issue before the prime minister, minister of health, and indeed the Parliament as well as the entire nation is one which points to the fact that there can be no meaningful engagement of the issue of abortion which does not recognise that human experience and situations cannot always be put into neat categories, or that there can be one answer for every situation which has moral and religious implications.
In the final analysis, the law governing these matters will be framed by the Members of Parliament entrusted with such authority, and who cannot dodge the issue indefinitely, or seek an escape route. It is hoped that the final decision will not be the result of giving an ear to the loudest voices or those that sound most threatening in the society, but will take into consideration the various perspectives and experiences of people, the insights from various disciplines, even as they will be guided by their own informed consciences and moral and religious convictions.
In the long run, however, may we arrive at a legal position that not simply leave us with a sense of being victors or losers in this matter, but a people who are compassionate in our dealings with the challenges which confront each other in the protection and preservation of all human life.