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Who are these women having these “other abortions”,
and what are the real facts surrounding the issue?
Advocated for Safe Parenthood: Improving Reproductive Equity (ASPIRE)
wanted to know.
ASPIRE conducted several surveys and what they found was alarming.
Most of these so-called “other abortions” are also the
result of illegal abortions that have gone wrong, but the victims
come into the institution say they “slipped and had a bad
fall”, and they are warded in the euphemistically named “Slip-and-Fall”
Ward.
Abortions such as these are conducted by clandestine, unsafe services
and a large number of those women who make use of those services
end up being hospitalised, often with the foetus still inside the
mother.
The hospital can then “legally” perform an abortion
as Trinidad and Tobago’s archaic abortion law, which dates
back to 1861, allows abortion for the purpose of preserving the
mother’s physical and mental health.
In other words, the Ministry of Health, through its hospitals and
an outdated law are completing the work of the clandestine, back-street
abortionists and turning a blind eye to the fact that thousands
of women use these illegal services.
ASPIRE’s concern, contrary to what many of their detractors
may think, is the fact that two to three women walk into the Port
of Spain Hospital every day with botched and incomplete abortions.
Maureen Searles of ASPIRE told TnT Mirror that the obsolete law
that aims to prevent abortion is having the opposite effect: By
criminalising abortion, women, especially poorer women, seek clandestine
services, resulting in a large number of women seeking treatment
when things go wrong.
Searles and others see the Ministry of Health as a partner in this
dangerous and illegal process precisely because the hospital has
a duty to preserve mother’s health.
“If a woman comes into the hospital and she’s haemorrhaging,
you have to stop the bleeding,” she reasoned, even if it means
completing an illegal abortion.
Two nurses at the Port of Spain General Hospital speaking to Mirror
on the condition of strict anonymity, confirmed what Searles said,
and one of them revealed another chilling fact: “Some of these
women died”.
The many who survive are not left unscathed.
They come out of the experience with a range of consequences, including
reduced fertility, pelvic inflammatory disease, chronic pelvic pain
and infertility.
ASPIRE’s members also believe that if abortions were legally
available under any circumstances at public hospitals, the unsafe,
clandestine services would disappear and for that reason, they have
been calling for abortion law reform and for government to consider
decriminalising abortion.
The organisation has been severely criticised for “promoting
abortion”, but ASPIRE Chairman Lynette Seebarran-Suite wants
to make it clear that their ultimate goal is to improve sexual and
reproductive health for all citizens, including the 4,000 victims
of illegal abortions.
Seebarran-Suite noted that there is a “strong correlation
between education level and knowledge of sexual health”, which
is why ASPIRE has been working tirelessly to collect accurate and
dependable data on sex and reproductive health issues.
She also revealed that a recent survey conducted by ASPIRE revealed
that more than half of those surveyed (57 per cent) did not have
correct knowledge of current abortion law.
The survey also suggests that while many had an unfavourable perception
of abortion, an even larger number feels that the current law is
harmful to women’s health and is ineffective in preventing
abortions.
The survey vindicates much of what ASPIRE has been advocating with
69 per cent saying that they wanted law reform, and 70 per cent
saying that politicians should use data and hard facts (not their
own beliefs, religious or otherwise) to vote on abortion issues.
Seebaran-Suite, who is also an attorney, admits that she, too, believes
that abortion is an unpleasant affair, but thinks that it was significant
that the data suggested that even those opposed to legalising abortion
were in favour of abortion law reform.
ASPIRE members believe that as much as 70 per cent of the population
would agree that the present legal grounds for abortion should be
expanded with consideration given to HIV status, rape and incest
victims and deformities of the foetus.
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