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‘LEGALIZE ABORTION’

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Sir,

I would like to respond to an article that appeared in this publication on July 29, 2017 regarding the legalisation of abortion.
Currently, our Constitution states that abortion is illegal except in the following cases:
l On medical or therapeutic grounds;


l Where the pregnancy resulted from rape, incest or unlawful sexual intercourse with a mentally retarded female;
l On such other grounds as Parliament may prescribe.


Abortion on demand or what is termed ‘voluntary termination of pregnancy’ is illegal.
The United Nations Human Rights Committee recommended that the country should eliminate legal procedural obstacles to access voluntary termination of pregnancy. The acting editor of the Swazi News has requested government to consider legalising abortion.


Did the acting editor consider that every abortion destroys an innocent life and has serious repercussions for the mother as well? If women were more informed regarding abortion, there would be far fewer of them. Legalising abortion does not make it safe for the child or the mother.


Activists, NGOs, UN agencies and some UN treaty bodies like to refer to the term ‘safe abortion’ whereas there is actually no such thing as ‘safe’ abortion. Approximately 10 per cent of all legal abortions end with one or more complications and 20 per cent of these complications are life threatening.


Guilt, anger, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, anniversary-grief, flashbacks of abortion, sexual dysfunction, relationship problems, convulsions, eating disorders, sleep disorders, alcohol and drug abuse, and memory repression are some of the psychological complications from abortions. Women who aborted in the year prior to their deaths were 60 per cent more likely to die of natural causes, seven times more likely to commit suicide, four times more likely to have fatal accidents and 14 times more likely to die from homicide.


The reason why the issue of abortion is so controversial is because the international community does in fact recognise abortion as a serious violation of the rights of the unborn child. For example, the UN (Geneva) Declaration on the Rights of the Child states: “Whereas the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth.” Other UN consensus documents, such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, contain similar protections.


Swazis are God fearing and they protect their most vulnerable members, especially their unborn children who are the future of any society. Would it make sense to have laws that protect children and laws that seek to destroy unborn children at the same time? To say legalising abortion would result in less killing and less dumping of babies could not be further from the truth. Abortion is in fact killing, so instead of less there would be more killing. Most of these cases that we are seeing today are from situations where the babies’ mothers have had fall-outs with the fathers or they claim that they could not afford to keep the child.

Hence one thing that should be encouraged is marriage so that couples can support each other while raising their children. Besides that, abortion on demand would be too costly for the country because taxpayers’ money would be required to fund it just as it is done in the Western world. On the other hand what we do need to advocate for are laws that require doctors to inform mothers of all the potential physical and psychological complications of abortion.


Lastly, there is this myth that is often promoted by pro-abortion groups when they say lack of access to safe abortion causes maternal and child mortality. This is an even bigger lie. The majority of maternal deaths are due to a lack of basic health care. It is estimated that 99 per cent of all maternal deaths occur in developing countries. A comparison of abortion laws by country strongly suggest that the real issue surrounding maternal mortality is a lack of basic healthcare, not the availability of legal abortions (see www.unicef.org).
Unfortunately, pro-abortion activists and organisations are ideologically aligned with one side of the abortion debate and are more concerned with political correctness than with open inquiry and scientific integrity. As a result, the trauma of abortion to some women and men is sugar coated.

LaKubheka Mndzebele

NOTE: This letter was edited because of its sensitive and long nature. Ed



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