EXCITING NEWS: TNG WhatsApp Channel is LIVE…
Subscribe for FREE to get LIVE NEWS UPDATE. Click here to subscribe!
By Jerry Okwuosa
In their rejoinder to Sonnie Ekwowusi’s article on the Lagos State’s Abortion Guidelines recently published in your esteemed paper, the Nigerian Feminist Forum (FNN) set out to deliberately misinform the Lagos State government and Nigerians on the legality of abortion in Nigeria. Yes, there were indeed several spirited efforts to legalize abortion in Nigeria under several guises which failed woefully but efforts to keep trying have continued, hence these topical LSAG.
The 5th Commandment of the Decalogue in the Christian Bible commands: Thou shall not kill (unborn babies, children and adults) and there are so many repetitions of this command in the Bible that NFF’s assertion that the Bible is silent on abortion exposes them as blatant liars. Quran 17: 31 stipulates “slay not your children (born and unborn) fearing a fall of poverty…lo, the slaying of them is a greater sin” and NFF missed this too. Nigerian cultures abhor the killing of unborn babies and Nigerians’ love children has made the legalization of abortion a near impossibility.
The NFF concluded its rejoinder with this: “To Mr. Ekwowusi and others like him who continue to misinform the public, we must state unequivocally: abortion is healthcare, and abortion is a human right”. Our response to this is simple: the opposite is the truth so we confidently reaffirm that ABORTION IS NOT HEALTH CARE and ABORTION IS NOT HUMAN RIGHT, because if it is either or both, Roe v Wade would not have been overturned by the US Supreme Court on June 24, 2022, after 49+ years and 63 million American babies lives wasted; 30% of them blacks. How could the killing of an unborn child ever constitute the human right of anybody? The life of any baby is his/her inalienable right, hence it is never legitimate or right to eliminate human life to resolve any problem. No, never!
As regards the over flogged issue of legalizing abortion for cases of sexual assault; rape, incest etc. raised by the NFF, we wish to remind them that even in such unfortunate instances, the baby remains ignorant of and innocent of the crime committed by his/her father and should not therefor be killed for the criminal act of a father s/he may never meet. Also, who among us will ever offer to suffer the death penalty in the place of his/her biological father who s/he knows, loves and cherishes? None! But by legalizing abortion for cases of sexual assault, we are forcing unborn babies to suffer the death penalty in the place of their fathers (criminals). We need to reconsider this injustice and condemn the abortion of babies conceived in sexual assaults.
ABORTION IS NOT HEALTH CARE either: it cannot be for the baby who gets killed and it is not for the mother who suffers dozens of side effects ranging from sterility, breast cancer to death. Note well that The Dublin Declaration On Abortion of 2012 (DD) states that “The purposeful destruction of the unborn in the termination of pregnancy is not medically necessary to save the life of a woman”. DD has been signed by thousands of specialist/expert medical practitioners from all over the world and remains unchallenged to date.
The NFF misinforms us that “In Nigeria, abortion is allowed in circumstances where the continuation of the pregnancy threatens the life of the pregnant woman…” that “The guidelines do not represent new legislation or the ‘legalization’ of abortion” and that “They simply serve to operationalize existing legislation on abortion…” These claims unfortunately assume that abortion is legal in Nigeria, but our Legal experts tell us it is not and so if abortion were ever to be legalized in our country on the assumption that pregnancy threatens the life of a woman, then the Dublin Declaration (DD) will surely make nonsense of that piece of legislation. Now, if “The abortion guidelines do not represent new legislation or the ‘legalization’ of abortion “as claimed by the NFF, what are they if not legalization of abortion through the back door?
The NFF informs us that “In 2011, the Lagos State House of Assembly updated the Criminal Code, providing for abortion…”, that “In 2015, the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act was passed, protecting the rights of gender-based violence survivors to receive comprehensive medical services…, that “The guidelines were modelled after the National Guidelines for Legal Indications prepared by the Federal Ministry of Health….” And asks how Mr. Ekwowusi could have a better input than all these experts who worked on this guideline over the years. Yes, Mr. Ekwowusi can claim to have better input than all of these experts because the Federal and Lagos State Guidelines on abortion are illegal because they are in conflict with the existing laws. Simple!
As for the Maputo Protocol, which Nigeria ratified in 2004, it cannot be enforced in Nigeria because it is not domesticated in Nigeria.
The NFF in stating that “Yet, despite this context and Nigeria’s restrictive law on abortion, more than a million women and pregnant people induce abortions every year in Nigeria…. This shows that Nigerian women are not culturally opposed to abortion, as they clearly partake in the interest of their lives” correctly reflects our own estimate of Nigeria’s scandalous maternal mortality figures but it gives the wrong reasons for it and therefor draws the conclusions that support its murderous causes. This is why. In Dr. Regina Akosa’s write-up in the Guardian of Sunday 15/7/07, which to date stands unchallenged, there are four broad groups of causes of maternal deaths in Nigeria: medical, socio cultural and economic, health services and reproductive factors. Under medical causes fall: Haemorrhage (23%); Infection (17%); Obstructed labour, Eclampsia, Sepsis, Abortion and Anaemia (11% each) and Others (5%). From these figures alone, 11% of Nigeria’s pregnant mothers will not die if they are law-abiding by not attempting abortion, but NFF advises them otherwise and turns round to blame what it tags “unsafe” abortion. Note that 89% of maternal mortality cases in Nigeria relate to issues our governments can impact positively. Will they? Never! because the wives of politicians and top government functionaries give birth abroad.
In June 2009, when the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights requested for information relevant to a thematic study on “Preventable maternal mortality and morbidity and human rights”, it received a report on WHO studies which show that the top killers of women in childbirth are bleeding, hypertensive disorders, anemia and sepsis etc. Abortion – including “spontaneous abortion” or miscarriage – is tenth on the list and accounts for 5% of deaths. The paper says “it is scientifically, medically, and morally unacceptable to divert resources from what is really needed to save women’s lives: skilled birth attendants and emergency obstetric care” and invest such resources in efforts to legalize abortion. Considering these local and international medical reports, there is really no justification for the relentless pressure mounted on Nigeria to legalize abortion. Abortion is the killing of an innocent unborn baby (murder) and murder should never be legalized. Abortion is intrauterine baby lynching.
We are sure that many of Nigeria’s pregnant women will not attempt abortion if they do not believe NFF’s lies viz: “Abortion, when carried out using a method recommended by WHO, appropriate to the pregnancy duration, and by someone with the necessary skills, is very safe, even safer than childbirth”. The NFF speaks of “necessary skills”, but does any parent send his child to medical school to specialize in abortion and acquire the “necessary skills” to kill babies against the law of the land? The NFF declares that abortion is very safe, even safer than childbirth. And we ask: Is pregnancy a disease? Never! With the NFF around and active, there is little wonder that maternal deaths and abortions are on the increase in Nigeria. They promote abortifacient contraceptives use and in collusion with the Federal Ministry of Health are struggling to increase contraceptive prevalence from 13.1% to 30% in Nigeria asap, so we can only expect more back street abortions because the confirmed failure rates of these contraceptives remain high: 3% -15%). The plan is to introduce contraceptives to our children as early as possible because everybody is having sex (a big lie) but because No Contraceptive Can Guarantee 100% Effectiveness (All manufactures accept this fact) there will surely be failures: pregnancies, STDs & HIV, emotionally and psychologically devastated young romantics and of course the mortal sin of fornication. So the abortion providers/ “experts” like Marie Stopes International can step in and harvest their millions of blood money.
Locked onto the World Health Organization (WHO), we at Project for Human Development have traversed the world on this issue and the WHO reports are basically the same: countries with restricted abortion laws or who prohibit abortion out rightly have the lowest maternal mortality rates overall. We are yet to come across an instance in the WHO reports where a country legalized abortion and her maternal mortality figures came tumbling down so we have no reason to believe that Nigeria’s case will be different.
Note that in the pro-abortion world, the word “safe” has lost its ordinary meaning. A “safe” abortion is any abortion performed in a country where abortion is legal and an “unsafe” abortion is one performed in a country that has refused to legalize abortion. Every abortion kills a child/children and every abortion harms the mother in ways ranging from sterility to even death. Abortion harms the father of the child, the child’s siblings and siblings-to-be, grandparents, community, country and even the entire world because nobody can tell what an unborn child could become. On the other hand, every pregnancy changes a woman permanently; whether she gives birth, aborts or miscarries because every child deposits its embryonic stem cells in his/her mother; whether she delivers, miscarries or aborts. Once conceived therefore a child has the right to be born as there is no way of completely deleting a child, whose soul (for Christians) lives forever.
Engr. Jerry Okwuosa, DG, Project for Human Development (PHD), 24 Bishop Crowther Street, Surulere, Lagos. [email protected]. 0703 137 7740.
About Project for Human Development (PHD)
PHD is a pro-life, pro-family, trans-political, trans-religious NGO registered with the CAC. We endeavor to hold the moral high ground, act as the moral policeman of society and speak truth to power in order to restore the culture of life for which Nigeria was known until recently.