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'I have done 1,000'
'I have done 1,000' - Retired doc calls for Church to stay out of abortion discussion
published: Friday | February 22, 2008
Athaliah Reynolds, Staff Reporter
A retired gynaecologist and former chairman of the National Family Planning Board, who said he has conducted at least 1,000 abortions in Jamaica, is calling for the Church to stop interfering in the Government's consideration of whether such procedures should be made legal.
Dr R.E. David Thwaites was speaking on Tuesday at a Generation 2000 (G2K) Third Tuesday Forum at the Life of Jamaica Auditorium in New Kingston. The forum was attended by individuals from various religious and civic groups with opposing views on the matter.
"We need a division between the Government and the Church where this abortion discussion is concerned," Thwaites said. "God should take care of God's business and the Government should work on behalf of the people."
Just last week, an alliance of various members of the Church and civic community said it would declare war against the Government if it moves to legalise abortion-on-demand.
The group's rejection of such a move came in response to last month's tabling of the report of the Abortion Policy Review Advisory Group in Parliament.
No right to interfere
Speaking with The Gleaner on Wednesday, Thwaites said the Church has no right to interfere when it had not been able to take care of its own affairs.
Thwaites, who is a member of the Anglican Church, said during his 40 years as a gynaecologist/obstetrician operating a private practice in Kingston, he had done several abortions for the children of members of the clergy.
"The Church hasn't even been able to stop their own members from getting pregnant, so how do they want to interfere in other people's personal decisions?" he asked.
The 75-year-old retiree said that, though abortion-on-demand is still illegal in Jamaica, he does not fear prosecution as, he claimed, doctors employed by the Government were conducting abortions at a clinic in Kingston for almost 30 years.
"So if they were doing them there and they tried to prosecute me, I would have prosecuted the minister of health, the permanent secretary in the ministry and the whole ministry," he said.
Archaic law
According to Section 72 of the Offences Against the Persons Act, anyone found guilty of having or facilitating an abortion could be sentenced to life in prison. Thwaites, however, said the law was archaic and needed to be taken off the books.
He further told The Gleaner that many of his patients were often married middle-class women who had already given birth to two or three children and didn't want the financial burden of another. He, however, said his patients were from varied backgrounds, including several teenage girls.
Thwaites, who chaired the Family Planning Board from 1981 to 1989, further argued that a 14-year-old child in secondary school, who has had her first sexual experience and got pregnant, should not be forced to suffer for life for that one mistake.
"Let's face it, in Jamaica the girls are much brighter than the boys so, therefore, we are abusing our whole reservoir of people who are educated when you allow them to have a child at 14 or even 15," he reasoned.
"It interrupts their life forever. They can never reach that position that they were going for before they got pregnant," he added.
He admitted he would not have any reservations if his own daughter wanted to do an abortion. "I would tie her down myself and do it," he said.
Thwaites further said that, if done under proper conditions by a trained professional within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, abortions are safe and rarely ever traumatic.
"It's not traumatic if it is done properly because we now have suction machines which are able to remove the foetus and the placenta all within three to five seconds," he said.
Thwaites claimed he had never seen a woman who was not elated after the process.
"I cannot recall even one who was depressed afterwards and I saw them for at least one visit following the termination," he said.
athaliah.reynolds@gleanerjm.com
A demonstrator displays leaflets featuring photographs of foetuses during an anti-abortion protest in Madrid, Spain, on Saturday. The abortion law, severely restrictive during Gen Francisco Franco's dictatorship of the predominantly Roman Catholic country, was liberalised in 1985. But abortion has become too easy to obtain, say its opponents, and lately it has flared into a dispute so bitter it prompted abortion clinics to go on strike for five days. - AP
published: Friday | February 22, 2008
Athaliah Reynolds, Staff Reporter
A retired gynaecologist and former chairman of the National Family Planning Board, who said he has conducted at least 1,000 abortions in Jamaica, is calling for the Church to stop interfering in the Government's consideration of whether such procedures should be made legal.
Dr R.E. David Thwaites was speaking on Tuesday at a Generation 2000 (G2K) Third Tuesday Forum at the Life of Jamaica Auditorium in New Kingston. The forum was attended by individuals from various religious and civic groups with opposing views on the matter.
"We need a division between the Government and the Church where this abortion discussion is concerned," Thwaites said. "God should take care of God's business and the Government should work on behalf of the people."
Just last week, an alliance of various members of the Church and civic community said it would declare war against the Government if it moves to legalise abortion-on-demand.
The group's rejection of such a move came in response to last month's tabling of the report of the Abortion Policy Review Advisory Group in Parliament.
No right to interfere
Speaking with The Gleaner on Wednesday, Thwaites said the Church has no right to interfere when it had not been able to take care of its own affairs.
Thwaites, who is a member of the Anglican Church, said during his 40 years as a gynaecologist/obstetrician operating a private practice in Kingston, he had done several abortions for the children of members of the clergy.
"The Church hasn't even been able to stop their own members from getting pregnant, so how do they want to interfere in other people's personal decisions?" he asked.
The 75-year-old retiree said that, though abortion-on-demand is still illegal in Jamaica, he does not fear prosecution as, he claimed, doctors employed by the Government were conducting abortions at a clinic in Kingston for almost 30 years.
"So if they were doing them there and they tried to prosecute me, I would have prosecuted the minister of health, the permanent secretary in the ministry and the whole ministry," he said.
Archaic law
According to Section 72 of the Offences Against the Persons Act, anyone found guilty of having or facilitating an abortion could be sentenced to life in prison. Thwaites, however, said the law was archaic and needed to be taken off the books.
He further told The Gleaner that many of his patients were often married middle-class women who had already given birth to two or three children and didn't want the financial burden of another. He, however, said his patients were from varied backgrounds, including several teenage girls.
Thwaites, who chaired the Family Planning Board from 1981 to 1989, further argued that a 14-year-old child in secondary school, who has had her first sexual experience and got pregnant, should not be forced to suffer for life for that one mistake.
"Let's face it, in Jamaica the girls are much brighter than the boys so, therefore, we are abusing our whole reservoir of people who are educated when you allow them to have a child at 14 or even 15," he reasoned.
"It interrupts their life forever. They can never reach that position that they were going for before they got pregnant," he added.
He admitted he would not have any reservations if his own daughter wanted to do an abortion. "I would tie her down myself and do it," he said.
Thwaites further said that, if done under proper conditions by a trained professional within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, abortions are safe and rarely ever traumatic.
"It's not traumatic if it is done properly because we now have suction machines which are able to remove the foetus and the placenta all within three to five seconds," he said.
Thwaites claimed he had never seen a woman who was not elated after the process.
"I cannot recall even one who was depressed afterwards and I saw them for at least one visit following the termination," he said.
athaliah.reynolds@gleanerjm.com
A demonstrator displays leaflets featuring photographs of foetuses during an anti-abortion protest in Madrid, Spain, on Saturday. The abortion law, severely restrictive during Gen Francisco Franco's dictatorship of the predominantly Roman Catholic country, was liberalised in 1985. But abortion has become too easy to obtain, say its opponents, and lately it has flared into a dispute so bitter it prompted abortion clinics to go on strike for five days. - AP
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