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| by Saida | Tuesday, March 9th Posted in: Tags: |  |
It is puzzling how the people who are loudest on why abortion should not be allowed in this country are men - pastors, priests, male politicians and men in the streets who have no clue what it means to be a woman and to be pregnant. People who do not have a uterus! The abortion debate in Kenya is happening at a time when women all over the world, State and non-State actors are taking stock of 15 years after the United Nations Women's Conference in Beijing. The Beijing Conference yielded the Beijing Platform for Action that outlined 12 Critical Areas of Concern in addressingthe status of women of the world. Incidentally, this year's theme for the International Women's Day (March 8th) was "Equality". The abortion debate has everything to do with 'Equality' for I believe that no women should die while giving life or just because she in a dilemna due to pregnancy. This debate is also coinciding with the just concluded 54th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in New York (March 1st to 12th). Each year, State and non-state actors from all over the world gather at the UN Headquarters in New York to deliberate on the status of women. This year, the CSW was taking stock of 15 years after the Beijing Conference, thus 'Beijing +15'.
The abortion debate is about women's bodies. Women's bodies are at the centre of the policies that were put at the discussion tables not just at the Beijing +15 but also at the home front where even those who do not possess a female body or have never understood it have become experts on women's sexual and reproductive roles and rights. In quoting their support for being anti-choice, a number of people have used religion and culture to explain why abortion should not be allowed. Culture and religion are embodiments of patriachy and to a great extent, they both are mechanisms through which patriarchy maintains itself. The body is a medium of culture - what we eat, how we eat it, how we dress, and the daily rituals through which we attend to the body are important in the subject of culture. The woman's body is a powerful symbolic form, an instrument through which central rules and regulations on sexuality, and other cultural commitments are inscribed and to great lengths reinforced. The abortion debate demonstrates the centrality of body politics in choices exercised by different people in making decisions on how, when and how often sex happens, the number of children a woman shoud or should not have, and whether she has any power and control over those decisions. In other words, it is unthinkable for some people that a woman would have a say over her own body. 15 years after Beijing and we have not yet unraveled or deconstructed the inherent cultural underpinnings in the control of the woman's body. We have not yet penetrated the mindset that, somewhere in every single culture, gives permission to own women's bodies and to expect that women should not question.
It also shows that those that control sexuality and specifically the sexuality of a woman, are the same people and systems put in place to control resources. Women and women's bodies most often become the battleground of development policies, the state, the community and the family. This explains why "the right to life" discussion in our draft constitution has been turned into a debate as to whether abortion should be allowed. Women's bodies are expected to act as vessels through which humanity sustains itself by ensuring that every ovum that is fertilised turns into a human being. Reecently, in a leadership training for women drawn from 5 districts in Northern Eastern Kenya, YWLI listened to a group of women say how even contraception was a form of "killing" by "preventing a life from actually materialising". This was not shocking for YWLI staff since this discussion was being discussed within a context of understanding patriarchy as an obstacle to women's leadership. The discussion demonstrated how women have no control over what happens to their bodies and how sanctions based societal expectations are imposed on women if they dare to be powerful or break the mould.
Those using religion and culture (that abortion is unAfrican) need to know that whatever their stance on abortion, they can not disregard the fact that it occurs. Since it is illegal and at the same time heavily restricted, it poses risk to the life and health of women. " Decriminalization od abortion, therefore, is a minimal response to this reality and a reasonable means of protecting the life and health of women at risk." (Singh J.S. The Politics of Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights and Women's Empowerment). Guaranteeing women the freedoms and rights to the free expressions of their sexuality and choices are important aspects of respect for bodily integrity as a fundamental human right. It is also time to acknowledge that reproductive health / rights are not just about women's bodies as vessels of reproducing society. In broad terms, reproductive rights include "the right to make a voluntary, informed choice of a family planning method, the right to make the moral choice to undertake or terminate pregnancy, the right to confidentiality in the relationship with a health provider, and the right of women not to be harmed or mutilated , even when such practices are carried out as part of traditional rituals." (Ibid). Women's bodies are the locus of the debate on all the contestations on these rights and the policies emanating from them.
I have never heard a woman say she will get pregnant on Monday so that she can procure an abortion next Wednesday! The decision to have an abortion is not as easy as people make it sound. Some say that if abortion is legalised (Kenya is not even near that I promise you...the battle is yet to be won!!) young women will be out of control; they will be extremely promiscous and will have high rates of abortion. Statistics in countries that have legalised abortion and adopted comprehensive sexuality education with accessibility to sexuality and reproductive rights information and services state differently - do not have high rates of abortion. I have listened to what the so-called 'voice of reason' has been in this debate. One of the perspectives is that a woman/ girl does not have to be pushed to the level of making that decision in the first place- that is, the decision to terminate a pregancy. For that school of thought I say, our choices should not be limited through the policing of sexuality and the choices that we make. There is a need for comprehensive sexuality education so that both girls and boys, women and men understand their bodies. This education would particularly play an important role in addressing basic issues such as girls having a clear understanding of the facts that are related to growth and maturation so that they differentiate the facts and myths in sexology. It is due to believing in the myths based on information from their peers that some girls fall pregnant. This does not even account for the hundreds of thousands of girls who are sexually abused then left pregnant if not also infected with sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS. The assumption that girls/ boys at a certain age are too young to be having sex has been used to deny information and services to young people who are sexually active. Not providing sexuality education and services to sexually active young persons is a recipe for disaster. When all is said and done, the reality is that hundreds of young women are turning to unsafe abortions and yes it is a major problem that will not be addressed through stigmatising the choice to terminate pregnancy. <!--[if gte mso 9]>
My reflection on the 12 critical areas of concern outlined in the Beijing Platform for Action is that there have been some gains for women and girls especially in education, political leadership and decision making. However the same can not be said of women's sexual and reproductive rights. It is also obvious that violence against women has not only increased but also taken other complex dimensions. Even as we reflect on 15 years after Beijing, we have to go back to basics and draw the links between the policy discussions happening now and other commitments that we have made over time to advance the status of women and girls. The Intenational Conference on Population and Development (ICPD, 1994) in Cairo opened avenues to discuss various reproductive health concerns that are obviously neglected when discussing development. It is rather tragic that so many women have had to die from pregnancies and unsafe abortions and still we do not realize that the traditional mother-and-child health programmes, effective in saving the lives of so many children have done so little to save the lives of women. Quoting the then Prime MInister of Norway, Gro Harlem Brundtland, "In a forward looking programme of action, it therefore seems sensible to combine health concerns that deal with human sexuality under the heading 'reproductive health care'. I have tried in vain to understand how that term can possibly be read as promoting abortion or qualifying abortion as a means of family planning. Rarely, if ever, have so many misinterpretations been used to imply meaning that was never there in the first place". (UN, 1995a, p171 from Singh J.S. The Politics of Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights and Women's Empowerment).
