DEVELOPING countries have been badgered in recent years by various United Nations agencies and pro-abortion civil society organizations, to decriminalize abortion as a measure to reduce maternal mortality rates.This unholy objective has been relentlessly pursued locally through various authors of sponsored newspaper articles and Steve Dada is the latest of them; judging from his article in THISDAY Newspaper of March 4, 2011 entitled Abortion: Reducing Maternal Mortality Rates. We need to learn from the experiences of others on such issues. So what are the experiences of countries who have legalized abortion for the purpose of reducing maternal mortality ratesIn an article entitled UN Health Data Show Liberal Abortion Laws Lead to Greater Maternal Deaths, Aracely Ornelas of C-FAM wrote that The worlds largest abortion provider, International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), has recently acknowledged an alarming surge in maternal deaths in South Africa, challenging the pro-abortion mantra that liberal abortion laws decrease maternal mortality.Maternal deaths increased by 20 per cent in the period 2005-2007 in South Africa, a country that since 1996 has had one of the most permissive abortion laws on the African continent.Based on the copy-cat mentality of African nations generally, the Pro-population Control Lobby worldwide is very surprised that Nigeria has resisted for so long going the South African way on abortions. And that is the genesis of the relentless pressure on Nigeria to become the next victim of decriminalized abortion.The World Health Organization (WHO) 2009 report states that the nation with the lowest African maternal mortality rate is Mauritius whose laws are among the continents most protective of the unborn. The report further shows how countries like Ethiopia that have decriminalized abortion in recent years in response to pressure, have failed to lower dramatic maternal death rates. Ethiopias maternal death rate is 48 times higher than in Mauritius.According to the WHO, the country with the lowest maternal mortality rate (MMR) in South America is Chile, which protects unborn life in its constitution and the country with the highest mmr there is Guyana, with a maternal mortality rate 30 times higher than in Chile.Ironically, one of the two main justifications used in liberalizing Guyanas law was to enhance the attainment of safe motherhood by eliminating deaths and complications associated with unsafe abortion. Note here that for the Pro-abortion Lobby, abortions performed in countries where abortion is not legalized are regarded as unsafe abortions.Similarly, the WHO statistics for the South East Asia region show that Nepal, where there is no restriction on abortion, has the regions highest rate of maternal mortality. The lowest in the region is Sri Lanka, which has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the world, with a rate fourteen times lower than that of Nepal.Locked onto the WHO, we 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 in their regions. We are yet to come across an instance in the WHO reports where a country legalized abortion and her mmr came tumbling down so we have no reason to believe that Nigerias case will be different. Rather it is reasonable to expect that if Nigeria ever legalizes (decriminalizes) abortion (God forbid!), her mmr will get worse; the way other nations before it have responded. Worldwide, the country with the lowest maternal death rate is Ireland, a nation that prohibits abortion and whose constitution explicitly protects the rights of the unborn.Steve Dada in his said article lectures us that In medicine, there is more to ending or terminating the development of a foetus in the womb than the meaning it connotes to a layman.This statement suggests to me that Dada is an arrogant medical doctor, because in my life experience, it is usually medical doctors lacking in humility and character, who talk about human life in a way that suggests that it is medical science that gives life; that medical doctors are the only people who understand life and are therefore, justified to play God. But we know that only God gives life, and that He gives it directly to the zygote at conception; not to his/her parents or their family doctor or birth attendant.It would appear also that because they deal directly with life in their profession, and because familiarity breeds contempt, doctors get careless with their patients lives while trying to play God with such lives. But thank God that doctors also die, and that they also are painfully aware that medical science is not an exact science per se.In WHOs analysis of causes of maternal deaths published in the Lancet in 2006, abortion was responsible for only 3.9% of Africas maternal mortality. Country specific rates for many African States including Nigeria were not included in the report due to missing data.In Dr. Regina Akosas 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 falls: haemorrhage (23%); infection (17%); obstructed labour, eclampsia, abortion and anaemia (11% each) and others (5%). If the four broad groups were to be equally weighted, abortion would account for only 2.7% of all maternal deaths. But taking the medical causes alone, it turns out that 89% of maternal deaths are not caused by abortion. This casts very serious doubts on Dadas sweeping claim that Records show that abortion is one of the major causes of high maternal mortality in 3rd world countries. 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. Abortionincluding spontaneous abortion or miscarriageis 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 womens 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 unborn baby (murder) and murder should never be legalized.But pushing his case further, Dada wrote that More scientifically, abortion is used to save the life of a woman. If the foetus is not evacuated it may even lead to the death of both To the false claim that abortion is used to save the life of a woman, we ask: Is pregnancy a disease and/or fertility a curse What becomes of the baby (foetus) when the womans life is saved by abortion The painful and undeniable truth is that every abortion kills a baby but it is only in some induced abortions that a woman dies. And to counter Dadas more scientifically stuff, we quote here O & G authorities.The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in the British Medical Journal has this to say under Difficulties and Dangers of Inducing Abortion: Those without specialist knowledge, and these include members of the medical profession, tend to regard induction of abortion as a trivial operation free from risk. In fact, even to the expert working in the best conditions, the removal of an early pregnancy after dilating the cervix can be difficult, and is not infrequently accompanied by serious complications. This is particularly true in the case of a woman pregnant for the first time. For women who have a serious medical indication for termination of pregnancy, induction of abortion is extremely hazardous and its risk needs to be weighed carefully against those involved in leaving the pregnancy undisturbed. Even for the relatively healthy woman, however, the dangers are considerable.Even Dr. Allan Guthmacher, of the Guthmacher Institute but now an anti-life/pro-abortion/pro-population control Think Tank, while a Researcher in 1967 wrote that Today it is possible for almost any patient to be brought through pregnancy alive unless she suffers from a fatal illness such as cancer or leukemia and if so, abortion would be unlikely to prolong her life and Dr. H. Patrick Dunn who retired after delivering over 15,000 babies in his distinguished O & G carrier is not convinced that an abortion is ever really necessary to save a mother today.He said in The Doctor and Christian Marriage, page 113 I reviewed the world literature through over 60 references and concluded there are no medical indications for abortion. And that is the conclusion of other conscientious doctors.Dada claims that it is because abortion is not legalised in the country, most women who become pregnant by accident or have unwanted pregnancies are left with no option but to seek help from quack medical practitioners who would complicate the situation. We wish to remind Mr. Dada of The UN declaration of the Rights of the Child which states that 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. By this declaration therefore, a child once conceived has a right to be born, and consequently, abortion could not be a legitimate option open to a pregnant woman, because to deprive another human being of his or her right to life, is not a legitimate exercise in personal freedom. In real life situations, abortion is actually not the womans choice but a no choice situation forced upon her by her circumstances: husband, boy friend, parents, work, education, shame, fear etc. Women generally want to carry to term and deliver the baby God has given them to conceive and will confide in you that they succumbed to abortion because they had no choice. Quite often however, such women experience stress and pressure from relations, friends and foes, some of whom may mean well but either have no idea what abortion does to women or are blinded by their selfish and hidden motives. As Frederica Matthews-Green strikingly put it: A mother chooses abortion for the same reason an animal in a trap chews its own leg off. What such a pregnant woman really needs is not an abortion but a friend who will help her solve the problem that is putting pressure on her to let her baby be killed. How sad! How very sad indeed that she could not find such a friend in her hour of greatest need!Dadas article tells us that it was during the Workshop by IPAS Incorporated tagged: Expanded Post Abortion Case and Post Partum Family Planning Curriculum for Pre-Service TrainingTraining of Trainers that Dr. Ejike Oji said that Abortion kills more women in Nigeria than most diseases. It is indeed a wicked God that allows women to become pregnant only to let them die. But would the pregnant woman have died if she did not attempt abortion Probably not; because studies confirm that childbirth is safer than abortion.In any case, where did Dr. Oji get his figuresfrom Abortion is arguably the commonest medical procedure in the world today, followed by sterilization, but one has to take what Dr. Ejike Oji of IPAS and his ilk say about the quantum of maternal deaths arising from any cause and especially abortion, with a big pinch of salt.In June 2010, Dr. Ojis principals at the UN and the WHO admitted that the maternal death figure of over 500,000 per annum with which they had been terrorizing the world and on the basis of which, for years, they had been raking in billions of dollars of international funding with which to high MMR is actually less than 350,000 per annum. The devil is the father of lies! We recall that in order to get abortion legalised in the USA in 1973, the protagonists inflated the number of US abortions ten times and inflated US maternal deaths arising from so called back street abortions 45 times (from 220 to 10,000). They taught the world that if you tell a big lie often enough, even you the liar will begin to believe it to be true.One Dr. Margaret Ekiran of College of Medicine, University of Lagos, Dept of Nursing Science attending the IPAS Workshop was quoted as saying that Abortion, if carried out in a proper manner saves the life of the mother and in cases of rape, abortion is inevitable. And we ask her: Does the unborn baby conceived by rape deserve the death penalty of abortion for the crime his or her father committed Definitely not! Besides, women who abort children they conceived by rape often say that it took longer (if ever) to recover from the abortion than from rape. Besides such women also suffer depression, have 193% increased risk of breast cancer for a first pregnancy, and are six times as likely to commit suicide than raped women who gave birth etc. The emotional pain suffered as a result of rape is compounded with the guilt of knowing that one murdered (aborted/took the life of) her baby.Such women also have to worry about the risk of perforation of their uterus, septic shock, sterility and sometimes death. They suffer physically, psychologically, emotionally and spiritually.Another participant, one Mohammed Ladan of Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Dept of Nursing Science claims the Workshop taught him to see the person trying to have an abortion as a patient first. Wrong teaching! What a pity! Pro-life Workshops teach participating medical personnel to see each pregnant mother as constituting a minimum of two distinct patients (mother and baby/babies) whose lives should receive equal consideration in all decision making processes.It is time for Nigerians and other third world countries to see what havoc legalized abortion is wrecking: 41% of all pregnancies in New York City are aborted. With all the sophistication in medical practice, the MMR of the mighty USA is 17 deaths/100,000 live births. 53 million American babies have been killed since abortion was legalized in he USA in 1973. In the European Union countries where only three of the twenty-seven countries in the Union have not legalized abortion, there is an abortion every 27 seconds and a divorce every thirty seconds. This is not what Nigeria needs and this is not what good citizens would want for their country.Okwuosa, writes from Crowther Street, off Akerele Street, Surulere, Lagos.
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