Women’s Day Press Statement

After yesterday’s outburst in parliament that the government will not allow "untrained butchers" (Speech in Parliament by Minister Fraser-Moleketi, 5 August) to continue back street abortions, we women of South Africa must reach the following conclusions:

1. After 7 years of legal abortions (to "stop back street abortions") there has been an increase of "illegal" abortions and more women are dying now than when it was illegal. This was predicted during the hearings before 1997 by many organisations, including CFT, as being the case in all countries where abortion-on-demand was allowed. The culture of easy abortions simply expands the industry and more women die in and out of hospital. Before the 1997 legalisation of abortion the government records showed less that a hundred deaths a year as a result of backstreet abortions. Since then, the official statistics are "500 women die in South African hospitals each year from complications associated with abortion." (The Mercury, 4 August) Further liberalisation of the law, as proposed by the new legislation, will simply increase this trend. More women will die.
2. The Government agrees that abortion involves "butchery". Of course, the fact of the matter is that the butchery is not always fatal for the mother but it always kills another human being, the unborn baby.
3. The opinion of the majority of the people of South Africa doesn’t really matter to legislators. Just as over 97% of all submissions and presentations made to parliament pre-1997 were against abortion-on-demand, so too the 3^rd August 2004 public hearings (where every presentation advised against the proposed amendments), is being totally ignored (as indicated in yesterday’s speech). The medical organisations and members of the public who took the trouble to accept the government’s invitation to make presentations on Tuesday seem irrelevant to our "democracy".
4. Since the government is intent on pushing ahead with its amendments it means that unbearable pressure is to be applied on health workers (mostly women) to be forced into complying with abortion procedures.
5. Western democracies which legalised abortion long ago are having serious doubts. New ultrasound photos in Britain have caused even pro-choicers to admit that the foetus killed in abortion is a complete human being. A review of legislation is underway. As one major syndicated commentator said: "In the 1950s, abortion was a squalid back-street secret. That is no longer true. Instead, our conscience about abortion has become a squalid back-street secret. …the honest position should be `abortion is murder and I’m in favour of it.’ " (17 July, The Spectator and published on 1 August in SA’s Sunday Times)

Margrit Olsen – 082 335 8808