I was still in school when I saw my first aborted fetus! I still have the image in my head. It was in the bathroom of a female hostel. There was so much blood. I’ve never seen that much blood before and ever since then. There were pieces of what looked like meat…soaked in blood that had coagulated. It was strewn close to the drain in the floor. Whoever it was that dropped all of these blood in the bathroom, had frantically wanted to have it flushed. She didn’t succeed. She didn’t envisage there would be so much blood, she probably also passed out…I mean if that much blood drains off a human being, that person would be too weak or could even have fainted.
Our hostel’s matron was screaming blue murder, threatening to report to the proprietress and thus our parents, as she searched from room to room to find who the culprit was.
That wouldn’t be the last time I saw a dead fetus gouged with blood and strewn in a bathroom…in the toilet…by the roadside…
Young girls in secondary schools and universities are the greatest murderers of all time; most times, these acts are committed by young girls too scared of the consequences of their actions or those who found themselves victims of unwanted pregnancies through rape or incest and so must get rid of it by hook or crook. Sometimes of course, these pregnancies were due to the stupidity of these girls or their naivety.
Two recent cases have brought to the fore my call again for government to consider making, abortion legal; the first is the case of a minor, a 14-year-old special girl who had been serially sexually abused by a pastor in his 70s. The girl’s parents didn’t know about this until her breasts and belly began to bulge. She couldn’t tell them who was responsible for it…until pastor was caught pants down. He was arrested, it became a “police matter” but the question remains, what about the bun in the oven? Will this 14-year-old be made to carry the pregnancy to term? She was already 29weeks gone. That’s the spawn of the devil!
The second story is that of a woman, married, she wanted to have a child but 20weeks or so into her pregnancy, she was told by her doctor the fetus had congenital birth defects.” “Your baby will be born blind, will have hearing problems, will never walk or talk.”
“Who did I offend? I want to remove it,” she said, there was no “faith-ing” this one. She had seen a family member almost lose her mind raising a special child; she didn’t want that kind of pain for herself nor the child, she wanted to remove the fetus.
Unfortunately, her doctor told her he didn’t do that sort of surgery, she would have to find a ‘quack’ or go through unorthodox means to get rid of the pregnancy…
Upon hearing her story, I didn’t do a rethink, I agreed she had to “remove” the pregnancy. Same stand I took when I reasoned that the 14year old rape victim or any rape victim for that matter, who happened to get pregnant after their assault, should get rid of such pregnancies.
There is no point bringing a child who would constantly remind the mother of who the father was; no point raising a child who will never develop emotionally, mentally and physically to achieve his/her potentials and this isn’t even playing God!
Young girls should be taught about birth control pills, should be given pregnancy preventive drugs, family planning drugs, implants to stem the tide of unnecessary abortions among teenagers. It is not teaching them to be ‘useless,’ its simply letting them know they don’t need to endanger their lives with abortions.
For women who choose to abort pregnancies that will be harmful to them or their fetus, I say, go ahead. I have seen what challenges special babies go through, especially in our part of the world, I have seen what their caregivers and parents go through and with the benefit of this hindsight, I totally agree that no lady/woman, girl should go through this heartache, this pain, of raising special children, God knows, raising normal ones is hard enough.
While this may seem callous, even cold and as someone said, “ungodly”, I see no sainthood in suffering, life in itself is difficult enough.