24 December 2007
Maputo — There would be nothing immoral in passing a law to legalise abortion in Mozambique, argues prominent jurist Cristina Hunguana, of the Mozambican Association of Women in the Legal Profession, in an interview published on Monday in the Maputo daily "Noticias".
Currently abortion is illegal in Mozambique under any circumstances - but only because of legislation inherited from Portuguese fascism. The Penal Code inherited from colonial rule has never been rewritten from beginning to end, but has only been subject to piecemeal reform. As a result Article 358 banning abortion remains on the statute book.
Many years ago, the Health Ministry took the pragmatic decision to ignore this clause in the Penal Code and doctors have been quietly practicing abortion in some of the country's main hospitals. But this has never been formalized: as a result, most women do not know that they can apply for hospital abortions, backstreet abortions continue to flourish, and 11 per cent of all maternal deaths in hospitals are the result of botched abortions.
The true figure is much higher, since the official statistics take no account of women who die of back street abortions and never make it to a hospital.
Hunguana declared that Article 358 of the Penal code is "completely out of date". She recalled a conversation with a judge who said that never in his entire professional life had he tried any case related to abortion. "So here we have a crime, but society does not agree that it should be a crime", she said.
Women who suffer complications from abortions go to hospital and are treated, she pointed out. They are not arrested - even though there is a police station next door to Maputo Central Hospital.
In cases of assault that end up in hospital, the health authorities channel the matter to the police, but the same does not happen with abortion. "Complications arising from back street abortions are treated in the hospitals like any other illness", she said.
Even in Portugal, despite the strong Catholic lobby, there have been changes to the abortion legislation, Hunguana pointed out. In 1983 abortion was legalized in Portugal in cases where the mother's health is at risk, where the foetus is deformed, and in cases of incest or rape.. Recently the Portuguese law was liberalized still further, she said, with abortion permitted to any woman up to the tenth week of pregnancy. Which confirmed her conviction that the Mozambican law is completely out of date.
"What women's organizations want", said Hunguana, "is not to encourage immorality in society. On the contrary, we are in favour of morality. But we don't think that a law on abortion is immoral".
She added that abortion should not be treated as an extra form of contraception. It was "simply a last resort, when there is no other solution to save the women's life".
What was required, she insisted, was that, when a woman feels she must interrupt her pregnancy, she must be allowed to do so safely, in a health unit, where there are medical specialists to help her - rather than putting her life at risk in the hands of back street abortionists.
The continued criminalization of abortion, and the theoretical possibility of sending women who have had an abortion to prison, "are violations of human rights", declared Hunguana. "We think that a woman should not be treated as a criminal just because she has chosen to have an abortion. This is a difficult decision. No woman likes to have abortions".
Hunguana denied the frequent claim by the anti-abortion lobby that permissive legislation increases the number of abortions. Examples across the world proved that the real impact was on the safety of abortion. "The number of clandestine abortions declines", she said, "since women have their abortions in hospitals and this has a direct impact on maternal mortality. Fewer women die because of unsafe abortions".
Right next door, in South Africa, there was the clearest of examples. The liberalization of abortion law in South Africa, Hunguana said, had led, over five years, to a 91 per cent decline in the number of women dying from unsafe abortions.
So why was the old Portuguese law still in the Mozambican Penal Code ? Hunguana replied that "political will" to change the law has been absent. Somebody must take the initiative to propose to the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, the repeal of article 358. That initiative could be taken by the President of the Republic, by the government, or by the parliamentary deputies themselves.
The government has, according to "Noticias"'s sources, proposed a bill decriminalizing abortion to the Assembly. Hunguana said that Mozambican women's associations would work to persuade society that such a bill is necessary.
It was not a question of importing ideas from other countries, she said. "Anyone who visits Maputo Central Hospital and has access to the data will see that the problem of abortion is real, and that abortion kills".
If a solution was being imported, it was because the problem exists. In any case, Hunguana remarked, the law criminalizing abortion was also an import from Europe. Furthermore Mozambique's current constitutions, with its provisions for freedom of expression, of the press, and other individual rights, was full of borrowings from other countries.
People only started talking about the supposed evil of importing ideas "when they are fighting against women's rights", she said. "when it comes to matters that benefit everybody, they don't say anything".
The government's bill is a timid beginning which by no means allows abortion on demand. It will allow the interruption of pregnancy when the woman's life is in danger, when the foetus is deformed, in cases of rape, and for HIV-positive women who do not wish to give birth to a child who may be infected with HIV. "This is an opening", said Hunguana, "but abortion will obey particular conditions".
Hunguana was clear that solutions do not lie simply in liberalizing the law. "We have to educate women that abortion cannot be regarded as a means of preventing pregnancy", she said. "We have to inform them about all the forms of contraception that exist, how to have access to them, and how to plan their families. Our role is also to raise the awareness of women so that they may have greater economic independence, so that they can control their lives, including their reproductive health, including how many children they want and when".
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