Archbishop Tamba Charles in a fiery mood
By Mabinty Kamara
The Catholic Archbishop of Freetown has gone past the religious position on the Safe Abortion Bill debate to challenging the country’s capacity to deliver the medical intervention required to save lives of pregnant women.
“We don't have what it takes to do medical intervention on a pregnant woman to save her life as a result of which a pregnancy might be terminated.We call it therapeutic abortion, not to talk about abortion on demand,” said His Grace Dr. Edward Tamba Charles at a thanksgiving service organised by the Saint Thomas Aquinas Church, Fourah Bay College.
The Archbishop disclosed that: “We have made that known to our lawmakers. But our country is now under ferocious pressure from those who are supporting us,” adding that from comparative studies countries that had legalised abortion, could still not reduce maternal deaths.
“On the contrary, they have increased it. A good example is South Africa. Since the liberalisation of abortion, abortion clinics have emerged, sponsored by a major world power but since then maternal deaths have increased. Even in the best of circumstances, patients die. And to open the floodgates in a situation like ours wherein our clinics do not have all that it takes to take care of ordinary surgery, a complicated intervention like abortion would create more problems for us than we can imagine,” he said.
Meanwhile, Pro-abortionists yesterday called at the office of Dr. Bernadette Lahai, leader of the minority opposition Sierra Leone Peoples Party in parliament,to ask for her support in the debate for safe abortion and to be making media presentations to educate the public more about the content of the bill.
She totally disagreed with the position of the Archbishop and other pro-life proponents, arguing that they had no basis to say that because the facilities were not there the bill should not be passed into law.
“How many times have parliament passed a bill without the necessary facilities in place but that did not trigger much criticisms. Why is it with this one that has to do with the right of the women?”she asked, adding that what other proabortionists had said was that even nurses, midwives and community health care workers could be trained within the shortest possible time.
“This bill is a choice we want to give to every woman and every girl.”
Dr Lahai narrated her personal story about a baby sister she lost many years back because of undercover abortion, noting that that she believed that many women were still dying because of the same reason.She argued that the draft law was all about safe motherhood.
“I thought that the day this bill came to parliament that is the end of it. To me, there is no controversy, no issue with the bill. Maybe the people do not understand the input in the bill.Is it that the bill is not clear or they deliberately do not want to understand the bill?”
Madam Lahai said that human rights are indivisible and holistic and every individual should enjoy that right. When the bill was passed in parliament, a lot of international organisations heralded the country for such a step in human right.
With regards to the arguments put forward by the religious people, she made reference to a biblical issue about the woman that was brought to Jesus Christ for committing adultery in the scripture. She said such crimes were tantamount to being stoned to death.
And so Jesus Christ said to the men who brought her that if anyone knew that they were innocent of that crime then let them throw the first stone and they fled away without throwing a stone.
She asked that the same thing be said about the abortion debate, urging that “all those who think they have never aided and abetted abortion, let them continue preaching against the safe abortion bill.”
But the chief bishop also observed that those prochoice arguments were merely using “the scandalous rate of maternal deaths in our country as an excuse to impose a secularist philosophy and ideology that will erode our moral and cultural values,” they saw the law as a beginning of other controversial laws.
“We might wake up one morning and hear about the law on same sex marriage as it has happened in other countries. This is the time to stand up and defend our cultural identity as an independent country. Yes, we need all the help we can get for the development of our country but it is morally wrong to impose on us, conditions that violate moral values and cultural values such as the philosophy that this bill represents,” said Archbishop Charles.
(C) Politico 09/02/16
