By: Peter Qeko Jere.
The news that women’s group led by WILSA-Malawi Executive Director, Seodi White have sued Malawi government over the abortion rights is sad, unmalawian, shocking, unchristian and so geared to tarnish the good image of Malawi’s God fearing society. We are aware that women have rights which need to be respected but we are not sure whether this includes the right to slaughter and intentionally shade innocent blood through the so called abortion.WILSA-Malawi’s main argument is (as in Nyasatimes of 30 April 2009) that when pregnancy is unwanted, a legal requirement to continue the pregnancy may constitute government intrusion on a woman’s body. Therefore they have taken government to court for as they argue, “failing to protect the women in the country”. Thus WILSA-Malawi wants our girls to be given the chance to terminate the so called, unwanted pregnancies. In so doing, WILSA-Malawi is advocating for the legalization of abortion in Malawi and that the penal code (149 & 150) be repealed.
In this brief article, I will be arguing that life and human rights begins at conception and that the unborn child has rights just like everybody else. I will also be arguing that abortion is murder, bloodshed of the highest order and should not be condoned in our society. In doing this, I have three point to argue my case.
Firstly is that what penal code 149 &150 stipulates is not a mistake but something which is geared to protect and promote Malawian culture, beliefs and identify. Law makers knew what they were doing to include this in our penal code. They were not drank or out of mind but very sober people who realized that they had to do justice to their country by putting in place something to safe-guide and protect the life of the innocent unborn child. Law makers knew and still know the history of this nation and what Malawi stands for. We don’t have to remind you that Malawi stands for peace while abortion is not peace, but the intentional slaughtering of the innocent unborn children.
Secondly is that Human Rights leaders do not have any idea as to where this nation is coming from. Malawi as a nation has its own unique history, culture, and beliefs which play major role when legalizing or not legalizing a strange way of life or anything that is not Malawian and outside our culture and tradition. Strange and unmalawian traditions are invading our society in the name of human rights and these includes, abortion, homosexualism and lesbianism. Now while we accept that people have rights, we at the same time should know that Malawians have their own unique culture and identity. Human Rights agencies need to understand issues of rights as Malawians, people who have their own unique culture. It is dangerous to understand issues of human rights outside the people’s culture.
Thirdly is that the unborn child has the same rights to life as everybody else.
Rights are God given, fundamental basic freedoms and entitlements that accrue to anybody by virtue of being human (that is to say, they inhere from within the individual). Since the unborn child (even hours after conception) is categorically a human being then this unborn needs protection under human rights. The right to life is such that it cannot be withdrawn from an individual even by the state. Rights and life begins at conception after which the unborn slowly develop in the womb and has full rights to life just like any other human beings. This does not mean therefore that the mother can just decide to terminate the pregnancy just like that. Terminating the pregnancy is stopping the development process and growth of a human being which is the same as committing murder. This is murder because human being development process starts soon after conception.
It is a scientific fact that life begins at conception when the first sperm penetrates the ovum forming a new 46 chromosome cell the process which forms a human being. It is scientifically proven that when a sperm and ovum join, there is a creation at that time a new living being; a being who has never before existed in the history of the world and never again will exist; a being completely intact and containing within himself or herself that totality of everything that that being will ever be; a being moving forward in an orderly process of growth and maturation, destined to live inside the mother for almost nine months and for as many as a hundred year outside.
Science has also proved the following; that even at 3 weeks when the mother is not even sure that she is pregnant, the genesis and beginning of every part of the child physiological features are there; that by the close of the first trimester the fetus is a sentient moving being; that at 10 days after conception (within a week), this tiny living human male or female sends a chemical hormonal message out into the mother’s body, which stops her menstrual periods. It is this tiny passenger who causes her breasts to enlarge in preparation for nursing, softens her pelvic bones to prepare for labour and without question, sets his or her birthday; that after 18-21 days the unborn is pumping through a closed circulatory system blood whose type is different from that of the mother; That at 6 weeks (1 1/2 months) after conception the brain of the unborn functions as measured on the Electroencephalogram machine (EEG); That at 7- 8 weeks, if we tickle the baby nose he will flex his head backward away from the stimulus and that at the same time you are able to listen to the heartbeat on an ultrasonic stethoscope machine; At 11 weeks, the face and all parts of the upper and lower extremities are sensitive to touch.
Responding to the question of whether the unborn feels pain and if ever he/she is human, the former President of America, Ronald Reagan said and I quote, “when the lives of the unborn are snuffed out, they often feel pain, pain that is long and agonizing”.
In support of President Reagan, group of 27 Medical Specialist, Pain Specialist, of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology said the following:
-That the human unborn and newly born do respond to stimuli is also a established beyond reasonable doubt
-That the ability to feel pain and respond to it is clearly not phenomenon that develops after birth. Indeed much of enlightened modern obstetrical practice and procedure seeks to minimize sensory deprivation of and sensory insult to, the fetus during, at, and after birth
-That the real time ultrasonography, fetoscopy, study of the fetal EKG (electrocardiogram) and fetal EEG (electroencephalogram) have demonstrated the remarkable responsiveness of the human fetus to pain, touch and sound.
-That the fetus responds to changes in light intensity within the womb, to heat, to cold and to taste (by altering the chemical nature of the fluid swallowed by the fetus) has been exquisitely documented in the pioneering work of the late Sir. Willaim Liley –the father of fetology.
-That observation of the fetal electrocardiogram and the increase in fetal movement in saline abortions indicate that the fetus experiences discomfort as it dies. One doctor who, the New York Times wrote, conscientiously performs Saline abortion stated, “when you inject the saline, you often see an increase in fetal movement, it’s horrible”.
Now the unborn child’s response to stimuli even at that early stay scientifically shows and demonstrates that life begins at conception. Since life begins at conception, it is proper therefore to say that the unborn (a human being developing) also need her/his protection just like everybody else. I am strongly arguing that what we have at conception is a human being who has full right to life hence terminating the pregnancy (in the name of unwanted pregnancy) is murder and bloodshed of the highest order. So when a girl has unwanted pregnancy, the solution is not abortion but to keep a child for adoption.
Calling for legalisation of abortion is promoting unsafe sex. This is because a girl can only abort if she gets pregnant and she gets pregnant if she have/had unprotected sex. So promoting abortion is the indirect way of advocating for unprotected sex which leads to not only pregnancies but also is a licence to the spread of HIV and Aids. WILSA-Malawi’s action on this matter is misplaced and wrong because this contradicts and defeats the efforts of other stakeholders’ working day in and day out fighting the spread of the deadly HIV and AIDS in Malawi. If WILSA –Malawi is saying “Yes” to abortion how will they advise Malawians girls on issues of HIV and AIDS? This is bearing in mind that both abortion and AIDS are the after effects of unprotected sex.
No comments:
Post a Comment