Peter Richards
PORT OF SPAIN, May 10 2006 (IPS) – During the visit of Jamaica s first female Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller late last month, her Trinidad and Tobago host, Patrick Manning, made a statement that most people here had heard already.
No doubt encouraged by Simpson Miller s assertion that as a political leader, she is never afraid to say or hesitant that the Almighty God is my master and captain , Manning told reporters that everyone knows that his religious beliefs influence his policies.
Everybody knows I am a Christian. It is not a secret. Everybody knows that I seek to operate closely with Almighty God and that my spirituality is the most important thing about me, he said.
It dictates exactly how I think and how I act, he added.
Manning has not gone as far as his Jamaican counterpart, who instructed her cabinet that religious leaders should be appointed as chairmen or members of the boards of all state agencies, but he has ensured that any contentious issue touching on religion is kept on the back burner.
He has already warned that a 139-page draft gender policy designed to promote gender equity, equality, social justice and sustainable human development in Trinidad and Tobago does not reflect his government policy.
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In fact, there are certain recommendations in the document to which the government does not and will not subscribe, he said, no doubt in reference to the call for a review of all issues relating to the termination of pregnancy .
Abortions are legally available in Trinidad and Tobago, but only preserve the physical or mental health of the mother, and the procedure requires the agreement of two doctors.
The procurement of a miscarriage is prohibited under the Offences Against the Person Act.
But the pro-choice group, Advocates for Safe Parenthood: Improving Reproductive Equity (ASPIRE), says many citizens do not believe that the current legislation is effective in preventing abortion and is lobbying for a reform of the law.
Last week, the group released the findings of a national survey titled Knowledge and perception of abortion and the abortion law in Trinidad and Tobago , in which it said that as many as 69 percent of the 918 people interviewed agreed that the current law needed to be reviewed, while 66 percent also found it in effective.
It noted that the survey, conducted on its behalf by the Trinidad-based Caribbean DMS Limited in the last quarter of 2005, provided empirical data to support the group s arguments.
ASPIRE said that the survey, part of its Respect My Choice campaign, also found that 50 percent of respondents knew someone who had undergone an abortion, and the same percentage were pro-choice or advocated abortion in some or all circumstances, such as rape, incest or to protect the life or health of the mother.
ASPIRE s communications officer, Cedriann Martin, citing research from official hospital records dating to 1999, said that there were an estimated three to four thousand admissions to public hospitals from unsafe abortions every year, costing the country at least one million dollars.
For the past six years, ASPIRE has reminded Trinidad and Tobago that about 4,000 of its women are hospitalised every year because of unsafe termination, said Martin.
The portrait painted by some is that of a woman who is single and selfish, whoring and irresponsible and therefore undeserving of empathy, legislative reform or even safe termination services, she said.
The reality starkly contrasts. Married women and mothers have abortions. Some women who are having problems with their partner opt out of parenthood. A woman s reason for ending a pregnancy is never trite.
That demonstrates the magnitude of the abortion problem, said attorney Lynette Seebaran-Suite, ASPIRE s chairperson, who adds that the Manning administration has been unresponsive to calls for dialogue on the issue.
International statistics and ratios for the Caribbean and Latin America indicate that for every safe abortion performed at a public health facility, two others were taking place in back alleys around the country.
Two years ago, Jamaican social scientist Dr. Fred Nunes, speaking here at a conference organised by the Gynaecological and Obstetrical Society of Trinidad and Tobago and the General Practitioners Association of Trinidad and Tobago, said that this country was among those with the highest abortion rates.
Unofficial estimates say that 45 out of every 1,000 women ages 15-44 have had an abortion, and Nunes estimated that approximately 20,000 women in Trinidad and Tobago have such illicit procedures annually.
He said countries with more liberal abortion laws showed lower figures The Netherlands (5.3 per 1,000), Canada (12), Britain (14.2), and the United States (27.3).
ASPIRE has been promoting a document titled Women s Choice on Pregnancy Bill . Seebaran-Suite said that it would allow a woman to request termination for any reason in the first trimester, while in the second trimester, it would be allowed under one of six categories, including rape, incest, severe birth defects or failed contraception.
Seeberan-Suite said she hoped that the new survey would be a jumping off point for abortion law reform and that its findings would provide the government with a level of comfort in embarking on dialogue about abortion and abortion law reform in a country with a population of 1.3 million.
She is also hoping that when confronted with the realities of the personal situation, they may act differently.
Former executive director of the Family Planning Association of Trinidad and Tobago, Emile Elias, who delivered the feature address at the ceremony where the survey results were made public, called on the government to take a definitive stance on abortion law reform.
I call on the government of the day to pick up the telephone, call the NGO (non- governmental organisation) sector and say to them we want to support you in the work that you are doing, he said.
Let s have every baby born be a planned and wanted baby, he added.
Elias also quoted a 30-year-old survey of 3,000 mothers that asked if their last pregnancy was planned. Eighty percent of the women said it was not.
You don t wait until 30 years later for the problem to evolve into dysfunctional families, he added.
Aspire says it will launch print and radio advertisements next week, telling the stories of women who have undergone abortions in Trinidad and Tobago.
In the meantime, the Manning government maintains its stony silence on the matter.
