By ‘Majirata Latela
A storm is brewing over the non-governmental organisations’ (NGOs) bundled efforts to twist the arm of the legislature to legalise abortion, theReporter has learnt.
Leading the pack on advocating for termination of pregnancy is the Women and Law in Southern Africa (WLSA), a non-governmental organisation that advocates and fights for women rights in the region.
In Lesotho abortion is illegal although unsafe practices to terminate conception continue to increase, a threat to the lives of many women and girls.
This phenomenon has triggered the WLSA to effectively pull up sleeves to ramp up efforts to lobby law-makers to legislate the termination of pregnancy by women and girls.
This despite abortion being criminalised as any person who willingly causes or induces the termination of a pregnancy commits an offence that may carry up to three years of imprisonment if found guilty.
According to the legal instrument, Penal Code 2010 section 45 “A person who does any act bringing about the premature termination of pregnancy in a female person with the intention of procuring a misscarriage, commits the offence of abortion.”
In an interview with the tabloid on Tuesday this week, the WLSA executive director Lesotho office, Advocate Libakiso Matlho, said NGOs waging a fight for protection of women rights have begun lobbying legislators to enact the law that decriminalises abortion.
She argued that such a consolidated effort was undertaken as a result of a web of recent cases reported to the organisation. For instance, she cited a case in which an unidentified girl fell pregnant although nurses and doctors had unsuccessfully attempted to prevent conception.
The girl had been sexually harassed and sought to commit abortion.
She said the 15 year-old girl was raped on December 31 2021 and the case was reported to the police on January 1 2022.
Matlho said the girl was taken to a clinic after the case was reported to the police. At the facility, according to Matlho, the rape victim was given medication that would prevent her from conceiving. The medicine was also meant to overcome any possible sexually transmitted infections.
But such attempts were futile as the girl fell pregnant.
According to Matlho the matter was brought before the magistrate court considering that the act was a statutory rape. The court, she added, was requested to issue an order allowing for termination of pregnancy.
“The challenge arose when the presiding magistrate in the children’s court said she could only grant the plea when the perpetrator was present.
“On this case there was no perpetrator (in court) that is why it was difficult to issue an order. As interested parties together with other stakeholders we applied to the High Court to issue an order allowing for ending the pregnancy. The order was duly granted in our favour with the health sector instructed to terminate the pregnancy.
“Other factors which we presented before the high court were that the child had a disability and was taken care by an old woman who survived by pension. That showed that the pregnancy was not in the best interest of anyone.,” she told the weekly.
Matlho recollected: “There are some cases which due to economic standing and poverty people cannot come before the court to say they will not be able to take care of the baby, whether the baby was born out of consensual sex or the mother became pregnant while still using the contraceptives. That is why we are pleading with parliament to be considerate of the rights-based approach when we come to the issues of sexual and reproductive health rights.”
She believed sternly that it was important to consider the social and economic reasons to justify an end to any pregnancy. That, she contested, would significantly reduce illegal and unsafe abortions.
Matlho suggested that costs to maintain women and girls involved in illegal abortions were higher than expenses incurred in committing the abortion itself.
In addition, she argued that the cost of taking care of women and girls who have allegedly committed a crime of illegal abortions and concealment of births cost the country a lot.
Further, she observed strongly that some women and girls enter into fall into unprotected sex due to poverty and seek means for survival. Others, she added, commit such illegal acts to save their jobs as sources of much needed income.
On his part, the Chairperson of Parliament’s Social Cluster Committee on Moshoeshoe Fako said the legislature was aware “many women and girls do carry out unsafe abortions and end up being hospitalised due to some post illegal abortion complications.”
He said the committee would push for the enactment of such a law.
With the passing of the Counter Domestic Violence Bill 2021, the cabinet has approved that parliament take cognisance of sexual health rights of women and girls.
Fako is optimistic that the Bill, which is now before the Senate, will eventually be enacted as law after passing through all legal processes.
He said as much as abortion is illegal, it seems to be an overwhelming practice being secretly carried out.
“I am not only advocating for legalising abortion but also about the use of contraceptives so that pregnancy is terminated right at the beginning. Girls should be sensitised about the issue because they are the ones on the receiving end,” Fako claimed.
But the head of the Catholic Church in Lesotho, Archbishop Tlali Gerard Lerotholi OMI of the Archdiocese of Maseru is taking none of the advocacy for legal abortion.
Archbishop Lerotholi firmly told the tabloid yesterday: “There is no provision for legalised abortion in this country. According to our customs and traditions, abortion is something criminal and intrinsically evil because it is a violation of the worth and dignity human life.
“The Constitution of Lesotho establishes the right to live as the first and most fundamental human right. Nowhere do the provisions of this constitution suggest even remotely that it may be permissible for whatever reason to terminate or even threaten in any way the life of an innocent unborn human being in its mother’s womb,” Lerotholi succinctly stressed.
He cited a case in which an unidentified 14 year-girl was raped by a 30 year-old man and became pregnant. A Lesotho court of law recommended she be helped to procure abortion while the man was charged, convicted and sentenced by a magistrate court to serve justice. The presiding magistrate applied to the High Court of Lesotho where an order for procuring abortion was handed down but with condition that an advice of the doctor be sought before execution of abortion order. However, Lerotholi said the order was in the event not executed.
“In our view, the court’s decision in this case is fraught with moral danger and opens the way to sinister and unscrupulous practices against the sanctity of human life. We fear that the court’s decision could be the first warning that our country may find itself tempted to follow the example of other countries, more influential and stronger than itself, that have enacted laws that give the right to have abortion on demand, as if it can ever be anybody’s right to terminate the life of the unborn,” he said.
