The legal case brought by abortion advocates against the governments of Antigua and Barbuda, and Dominica, has seen passionate opinions shared by both sides of the abortion debate.
Dr Veronica Evelyn, a Consultant Sociologist, and Jamaican attorney Phillipa Davis, gave their opinion over whether there should be a decriminalisation of the abortion laws.
Speaking on Connecting with Dave Lester Payne on Monday, the attorney expressed her belief that abortion goes against morality.
“Medically, there is no such thing as a safe abortion; abortion has a single intent, which is to kill, which is to end the life of a growing child within his or her mother’s womb. Abortion is not health care, and the fact is there are tons of reports that will show even the most qualified surgeon can make mistakes, and there can be scarring,” Davis said.
Dr Evelyn argued that the right to life under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights covers both the life of the mother and the child, and she called abortion murder.
The arguments by Dr Evelyn and the Jamaican attorney at law are similar to other statements made by religious organisations and their supporters for keeping abortion as a criminal offense.
While the government has not said that they support one side or the other in the debate, Attorney General Sir Steadroy Benjamin said that the government would defend the current law in court.
Currently, many women—almost 75 percent in Antigua—will have an abortion by their 40s, according to a study by the abortion advocacy group, Aspire.
However, the duo argued that “life begins at conception,” and they claimed that persons have been “enculturated” by American and Western arguments for abortion.
In 1983, the government of Barbados passed the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, decriminalising abortion, making Barbados the first English-speaking country in the Caribbean to do so.
“We have to look at the stakeholders, it is not just the woman that’s involved, we have the fathers; every child comes from the sperm and an egg…so you have to consider the child, and then you have to weigh the interest of the mother and the interest of the common good, so the State is also a stakeholder in this,” Dr Evelyn opined.