Geisha Kow­lessar

Amid in­creased calls to le­galise abor­tions which have been sanc­tioned by for­mer health min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan and ad­vi­so­ry di­rec­tor of the Fam­i­ly Plan­ning As­so­ci­a­tion Dr Jacque­line Sharpe, Ro­man Catholic priest Fa­ther Clyde Har­vey, how­ev­er, said T&T must build a so­ci­ety where life was re­spect­ed even in the most dif­fi­cult of cir­cum­stances, in­clud­ing ab­nor­mal­i­ties.

There have been fer­vent calls by some groups to have the pro­ce­dure le­gal es­pe­cial­ly in light of the Zi­ka virus.

At a fo­rum on the top­ic Abor­tion: Her body, her choice?, at the Noor Has­sanali Au­di­to­ri­um, UWI, St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus, yes­ter­day there was a strong call by Khan and Sharpe for the leg­is­la­ture to be re-ex­am­ined and there­fore grant women the right to do with their bod­ies as they saw fit, es­pe­cial­ly in in­stances of rape, in­cest and where the moth­er's life was at risk.

Sharpe, who said the most re­cent da­ta avail­able were from 2004, showed there were 1,854 abor­tions which were con­duct­ed at the hos­pi­tals, of which 333 were spon­ta­neous and five were med­ical abor­tions.She said world­wide some 22 mil­lion women un­der­went abor­tions, whether le­gal or il­le­gal, an­nu­al­ly.

In Guyana, she added, abor­tion was avail­able on re­quest but for spe­cif­ic re­quire­ments, in­clud­ing rape and in­cest. St Vin­cent and St Lu­cia have al­so changed their laws.De­scrib­ing abor­tion as a very un­com­fort­able top­ic, Khan said he had seen the ef­fects of un­safe abor­tions and called for fur­ther dis­cus­sions to take place.

"Mov­ing for­ward more re­li­gious bod­ies and more women's groups should come out and give their views but I be­lieve women should have the right to deal with their bod­ies the way they see fit," Khan said.He said leg­is­la­tion was ar­cha­ic, adding if a per­son was caught sell­ing over the counter drugs that per­son could be jailed for four years for aid­ing and abet­ting in an abor­tion.

While as a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Khan said the top­ic arose with the for­mer Cab­i­net but at that time the coun­try was not faced with the ZI­ka virus.

How­ev­er, Har­vey, who said the teach­ings of the Catholic Church were both clear and com­plex, said hu­man life must be pro­tect­ed from the mo­ment of con­cep­tion.

How­ev­er, he added, that paint­ed a broad­er pic­ture re­gard­ing how life was viewed.

"We have to build a cul­ture in which con­ver­sa­tions ex­ist­ed be­tween men and women and not sim­ply be­tween women and their doc­tor.

"Un­less we have a clear un­der­stand­ing of what life is, un­less we in our own be­ing seem to be in tuned to what our own life means and out of that at­tune­ment, there­fore, to be able to be in tune with every oth­er hu­man be­ing, we are go­ing to re­duce this to a ques­tion of me and my life and some­thing," Har­vey said.

He said in his work with young men of Laven­tille many of them of­ten said: "She mak­ing a child for me," or "I have to breed she."

There was an ini­tial hap­pi­ness and then a with­draw­al, Har­vey said, adding that demon­strat­ed the lack of un­der­stand­ing of what was life.

"We have to build a cul­ture in which men and women to­geth­er un­der­stand that con­cep­tion is some­thing en­gaged in to­geth­er.

"We can­not sim­ply dis­cuss it in terms of women's rights be­cause it is part of a whole. And when we un­der­stand that young men pick up a gun and they think noth­ing of shoot­ing an­oth­er hu­man be­ing... that is part of the life valu­ing," Har­vey said.

On Zi­ka, Har­vey urged that what mat­tered was car­ing for an­oth­er hu­man be­ing in the first place de­spite im­per­fec­tion.

"There is a per­fec­tion­ism where­by peo­ple seem to think that we as hu­man be­ings must aim to pro­duce what is per­fect or not pro­duce it at all," Har­vey added.

Women's rights ac­tivist, Lynette See­ber­an-Suite, who agreed that there must be a change in the law, said the doc­tors per­form­ing the pro­ce­dure ran the risk of be­ing pros­e­cut­ed.Mem­bers of the au­di­ence seemed di­vid­ed on the top­ic as some were very pas­sion­ate against abor­tion, say­ing it would cre­ate a so­ci­ety of de­stroy­ing lives rather than sav­ings them.