Pregnancy Is Family Planning … For Some People
- Category: The Comrade
- Date 06-09-2009
- 364 views
“My mother could never carry out an abortion because she never got an unwanted pregnancy,” boasted a witty chap recently. He added, “She had no contraceptives and my father would not have accept. Both never worried about accidental conception as it would not be possible during pregnancy.”
The crank explained that his parents’ marriage was one incessant schedule. At any one moment, his mother was waiting to conceive, expecting a baby, or suckling one. The couple always wanted another child and the prospect having one soon was always a source of joy. They also ensured that none of their children’s blood stained their hands; and the zealous woman delivered more than a dozen kids and lost her productive knack when she still needed more.
Someone observed that women in general do not like abortion, but some of them get pregnant when they are not ready to have children. It is similar to eating food when you are not ready to get satisfied; or more like going to school without the desire to gain knowledge. That more and more women and girls are getting pregnant (and aborting) is testimony of the gradual moral downturn our generation has assumed.
According to media reports, most private health facilities and some government-owned ones have positioned themselves as abortion centres. One such fierce clinic in Dar es Salaam performs as many as forty abortions monthly for students, spinsters, and married women who manage to pay handsomely (See “Dar in roaring abortion business”, The Guardian 27th August 2009). This scale of slaughter is genocide, to say the least.
In his four decades of mortal existence, The Comrade has not encountered a person or family that wept at a baby’s birth. In contrast, individuals and families often celebrate whenever a new baby is born; and adults basically love to behold and kiss babies. It is rare indeed for a mother to accept that her child should be put to death; neither for shame nor for want of comfort.
Why then are many pregnancies terminated while it is clear that lovely babies should be the logical result? The first answer lies in people’s failure to recognise life beyond what they can see with their eyes. Thousands may die in a bomb blast in India; others in a suicide attack in America; hundreds of thousands in tsunami and landslides in Indonesia; hundreds others in a plane crash in Scotland; and dozens in a train accident in China.
At home, dozens may lose life in a road mishap; others in a crumbling mine; scores of albinos in ritual murders; and a handful out of starvation. Sadly, not many will agonise unless they saw or knew the victims directly. The unborn babies face the same fate. Their lives have begun but their mothers are not aware and hence do not worry to smash them to death.
The second answer is the stigma that ‘illegitimate pregnancy’ brings. A woman or girl bearing an unwanted pregnancy is only a carrier of a nation’s collective guilt. Our cultural, religious and other convictions present sexual intercourse as an exclusive right for married couples.
Yet it is highly but secretly sought after by unmarried people, who often attract pregnancies; a visible testimony that the girl or woman has stumbled on illegal territory. An abortion thus becomes a convenient, though risky, means to conceal personal liability, evade public shame, and reclaim social esteem. At heart, however, she retains eternal vulgarity.
Thirdly, every girl wants to be called a virgin. This is because every parent wants to have the most valued daughter; and girls know that they can keep their parents’ confidence by presenting themselves as chaste and undefiled. Yes, she is a good girl or a faithful woman even if she aborted ten times - so long it is not public knowledge.
By Venansio Ahabwe
Source: The Comrade, The Guardian on Sunday