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Reproductive Health : Abortion Through the Backdoor ! By Dr. Debo Adeleke
If you read the article published by This Day of Wednesday February 8, 2006, titled : Danjuma’s Abortion Bill, you would still be suffering from indigestion by now. I read it, and I haven’t recovered. It stated in full details the surreptitious moves by Senator Daisy Danjuma, SOGON-society of Gynaecology& Obstetrics of Nigeria and the international co mmunity to legalize abortion through a bill on National Reproductive Health Institute [NRHI] to be passed by the Nigerian senate. The average Nigerian needs to be educated on what Reproductive Health means. To put it graphically, the Reproductive Health agenda is like a half rotten fruit. If you are lucky, you could find parts of the fruit that has not yet been affected by the infection, but eventually that fruit will be destroyed by the infection that has already set in. Reproductive health is a term which was coined at the Cairo Conference on Population and Development [ICPD, 1994]. The Reproductive Health agenda is a pout pourri of ideas which refer vaguely to women’s health with cleverly interwoven arguements for reduction of maternal morta lity rate. Before you begin to applaud, take a long hard look at the full picture. One of its key concepts is reproductive rights which implies that men and women should have access to varied methods of fertility control, chiefly, abortion. To begin with since when is it a right to have children ? It has always been universally understood that children are gifts, hence we cannot begin to talk about reproductive rights, especially when such rights undermine the basic human right, which is the right to life. Reproductive right is simply ABORTION on demand !
Senator Danjuma and her group, are proposing this institute as a panacea for Nigeria’s deplorable maternal mortality rate. The bill does not state in specific terms how they intend to acheive this. You do not need to be a genius to understand why our maternal mortality rate is at such a disgraceful state. How many women have access to well trained medical doctors ? Women in urban and remote villages, still visit quacks while in labour. Some of our Teaching hospitals are waiting rooms for the mortuary, how many hospitals have safe blood banks in an age of HIV/ AIDS ? How many women can afford good antibiotics ? Don’t we know how many women have to slug it out on the farm, walk many miles to get drinking water –which is not potable-, fetch firewoods, and suffer silently in our communities even while in their third trimester ? What do these women need? A reproductive health institute which will provide poisonous contraceptives and further dehumanize them with abortions, or practical solutions of good food, water, access to affordable and professional antenatal care. Common sense tells me, the latter.
A 21st century Nigeria, is littered with primary health care centers that do not even have ordinary panadol, yet you will find the most sophisticated contraceptives there. In my practice I have had many of these women come in with bleeding disorders, infertility, infections, and many other complications of contraceptives and abortion procured at the hands of specialist doctors, so don’t be quick in calling for the legalization of abortion in order to make it ‘safe’. The question is, safe for whom? The embryo, who will be killed anyway, or the mother who will be physically brutalized, mentally ruined and emotionally tortured by this experience. You don’t have to have been at a D & C session to imagine what I’m talking about, and yet it is true that this is what a female Senator wants to leave behind as legacy when she leaves office. Abortion is a procedure which by nature can never be safe. You can ask the American women who have had their wombs curretaged, perforated, removed, and battered even at the hands of consultant Gynaecologist ; many of them are psychological wrecks because of abortion decisions they can’t take back. They too were promised to be ‘liberated’ by abortion just like Daisy is promising our women today. It turned out to be a lie !
If Danjuma is serious about reducing maternal mortality rate in Nigeria, let her promote true health for women, through well researched, time-proven medical methods. A group of Obstetricians heavily sponsored by the international community are lobbying for this institute because they are the only ones who will benefit from its financial returns. The abortion industry is the most lucrative industry in America today. Already, there is unrest over who will be on the board of the NIRH which is only an instrument of population control through such radical means as abortion and abortifacient contraceptives. America drastically reduced her matern al mortality rate in 1950 – 1973 as outlined by the National center for health statistics in America through advances in Medicine such as improved anaesthetic techniques, development of new and more powerful antibiotics, emergence of real time ultrasound, major studies in laboratory technonology, deeper understanding of disease processes, standardized training of nurses, medical students and doctors. Abortion did not contribute to the reduction of maternal mortality in America.
The Nigerian woman deserves much better than what this institute proposes to do.&nb sp; Instead of sinking whopping sums of money to erect an institute which is a Pandora’s box of abortion, sexually transmitted infections, HIV/ AIDS, promiscuity, violence, etc, that huge sum of money should be used to either revamp our moribund tertiary hospitals or build ultra-modern centers of excellence be set up in the six geo-political zones of the country to provide quality care to women. Centers which will be highly subsidized, adequately staffed with trained professionals and equipment. These centers will be under the ministry of health and the Nigerian government. Nigeria has enough blue print to reduce maternal mortality rate, we don’t need an abortion providing institute by the name of reproductive health. Abortion is an unjust and immoral act.&n bsp; Why should the government legislate a law that will perpetuate and entrench this evil in our society. Laws are meant to protect citizens, and not to make them more vulnerable than they already are. We don’t have to import this rot from the western world whose populations have dwindled to such frightful levels that they now even bribe their women to have children.
Thirty years on, after seeing its devastating effect, America is trying to remove her abortion laws. Abortion only enriches the abor tion provider ; it kills babies and destroys women, physically, emotionally, spiritually and psychologically. Let us not adopt a legacy of death that will wipe out generations of Nigerians. Abortion will wipe out more children than Hitler’s concentration camps and the Holocaust. Isn’t that what the western world is trying to do with Africa ? Already, they have succeeded in South Africa which recently swallowed the abortion pill offered by the west. Why is Africa never good enough for anything except extermination ? Our own gynaecologists whose bellies have been fully stashed to constipation points are providing black propaganda to the Nigerian government to legalize abortion by the name of reproductive health institute.
If the west is so worried about our maternal mortality rate, why do they want to sterilize our women, and turn our women into gutted shells ? Medicine is so advanced today that it is unacceptable, unpardonable and cruel for the west, helped by greedy Nigerian doctors and government officials to offer Nigerians abortion as the solution for her high maternal mortality rate. Our hospitals need to be overhauled, and made fit for humans, let these people who are so concerned about women’s health begin from there, then we will be convinced of their altruistic motives. Why can’t we learn from past lessons of colonialization ? The Nigerian woman deserves good food and better health. It will be criminal to slam an abortion law on her. An abortion law would be the unmaking of this great nation. It is neocolonialism and will radically decimate the population of Nigeria which is why she is still the giant of Africa even without good roads and infrastructure. Nigeria with her population remains a great threat today to the western world, and that can be the only reason why they are so interested in sen ding our race to extinction through systematic abortion. The greatest resource we have is our formidable population. Let no one sell you that old-fashioned talk about population explosion. Our real problem is the corruption that has crippled the entire nation. That is why our law makers can travel abroad for tummy-tucks while our people are deprived of basic health care.
Nigerians must react and defend the life of the unborn child and the integrity of women. The future of our children depends on it, posterity demands it and our consciences clamour for it, lest this American saga becomes an African nightmare.
Dr. Debo Adeleke Medical practitioner, Lagos
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