No! No! No! - Pro-life group rejects pro-abortion lobby

A vocal pro-life lobby group, Jamaica Coalition for a Healthy Society (JCHS), says it will not support abortion under any circumstances.

Dr Wayne West, who chairs the group, said that while he is fully aware that some women are impregnated against their will, abortion should never be an option on the table.

"No! No! No! The principle on which we resist abortion is because a human life cycle starts at fertilisation ... so there should be no abortion at all," West said.

Some pro-abortion lobbyists have called for the practice to be made legal in circumstances where the mother became pregnant as a result of a sexual crime, or in instances where there are health risks for the mother and child. However, the JCHS said it would not support those exceptions.

"We recognise that rape and incest - and not only rape and incest, there are other troubling situations in which women find themselves - and we see it as an important part of the pro-life agenda to lobby Government to arrange for women to be assisted with crisis pregnancies. For people who abuse women, rape them and so on, to be punished according to the law, and generally to give the best life possible to mother and child, irrespective of the circumstances of the pregnancy.

"In the event that the mother's life is threatened, deliver the child and put it in an incubator and try to keep it alive. Abortion is the deliberate killing of a child in its mother's womb. If the mother's life is at risk, you don't kill the child. We would never put the mother's life at risk, no we don't do that. It doesn't matter the age of the pregnancy, while we do not have the technology of saving the child's life, we should not go about killing anybody," West said.

PROVIDE ASSISTANCE

The JCHS chairman said that instead of terminating the pregnancy, the Government and other entities should provide assistance for pregnant females who find themselves in difficult situations.

"Every human being is made in the image of God and other human beings have no right to kill an innocent human being, irrespective of the circumstance under which that human being comes about, although we do appreciate how traumatic such circumstances are," West added.

The JCHS comments on abortion come in the wake of the US Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v Wade that guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion. The lobby said that the pro-abortion Roe v Wade ruling, which was in place for nearly 50 years, was flawed and thus was correctly overturned.

West yesterday told THE STAR that he is hoping the Jamaican Government will not yield to calls for abortion to be legalised here. At least two parliamentarians, Lisa Hanna and Juliet Cuthbert-Flynn, have moved motions in Parliament for the legislature to consider amending the country's abortion law.

"We are hoping that the Jamaican Government will follow suit in terms of seeking to introduce it to Jamaica. We have to protect women and their children and families in general. The children are our future and without children we have no future and without mothers we have no children. So we have to organise to make sure that mothers and children have the best life possible," he said.