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Press release:
"Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Amendment Bill"

2nd  DEMONSTRATION OUTSIDE KZN PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE  -   18 OCTOBER 2004

PRESS RELEASE

A CFT placard demonstration will be held from 9:30 am outside the KZN Parliament in Pietermaritzburg on 18 October 2004. CFT members, together with other organisations, are protesting the "Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Amendment Bill". The Health Committee gave a briefing on the bill on Friday 15 October, in the ANC Caucus Room .  Unfortunately, the Health Committee has given little chance for the public to make submissions. This is in keeping with the tradition of ignoring public opinion which is overwhelmingly against abortion on demand.

On Friday, together with more than 120 CFT members, there were crowds of curious people outside the KwaZulu-Natal Parliament in Pietermartizburg. The placard demonstration was arranged at the last minute because the Health committee has studiously tried to avoid any public attention on the abortion matter. Parliament knows, and Friday's successful demonstration confirmed, that the public are firmly against abortion. (see HSRC October 2004 statistics). No time has been given for public hearings and no consultation possible.

CFT leaders handed over a document (to Health Committee secretary, Ms N. Mshengu) containing points of concern about the the "Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Amendment Bill". This was after sitting through the "briefing" of the Health Portfolio Committee by Health Officials, including the Director-General Dr Green-Thompson, in the ANC's caucus room in the Pietermaritzburg Parliament.

After two hours of standing with placards and interacting with numbers of enquirers the CFT members sang a Zulu hymn and prayed together. 

 The `Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Amendment Bill’ is objectionable to South Africans in general and KwaZulu-Natal citizens in particular, because:

1. It seeks to enforce a moral wrong on our people. Abortion is the destruction of unborn children and every law which seeks to make this criminal act easier to access only exacerbates the offense.
   
2. In effect this bill seeks to make nurses into surgeons.
3. It does not provide a specific conscience clause. According to the `Parliamentary Monitoring Group’, the bill does not provide for objection "based on conscientious grounds…it does not provide for choice as the emphasis was on protecting citizens rather than the personal interests of medical practictioners…".
   
   This means that nurses/doctors and other health workers will be forced against their consiences to participate in murder. Should they resist the state they will be severely punished with fines and sentences. Fines of R200,000 and 10 years in prison are the Government’s suggestion.

Accordingly, we call on our KwaZulu-Natal Parliament to reject the "Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Amendment Bill" and rather place emphasis on the Right to Life and abstinence education.

or Rev D. King 072 691 3232