Legislators get ready for abortion law

No cameras.  Just observe.  For once, photographable first Deputy Speaker of Parliament Esther Mcheka Chilenje seemed allergic to pictures when a busload of legislators arrived at Mwanza District Hospital last week.

Obviously, this was no ordinary business of the House.  Not every day do members of Parliament (MPs) visit hospitals blighted with overcrowding, staff shortages and patients dying of preventable conditions.

Actually, the merger of the Parliamentary Committee on Health and Women Caucus wasin the southern border district to appreciate the gravity of unsafe abortions which maims and kills thousands of Malawian women and girls.

Lately, the push for a liberalised law to expand grounds for safer and legal abortions has become so touchy that Chilenje summoned a clerk for a word.

“We are not comfortable with cameras,” she told him.  “We don’t want people to think we support calls for abortion.  Who invited them?”

This sparked murmurs and retorts among journalists. They  need express permission to take photographs in hospital interiors, but their focus was not patients. Rather, they were covering elected representatives on State business.

Ordinarily, meetings of parliamentary committees are open to the press and all. Interestingly, Mulanje Bale legislator Victor Musowa, the deputy chairperson of the health committee, appreciates that Parliamentarians have no business to hide.

“We are not here to debate or take a stand,” he says. “Following press reports on the Termination of Bill that will come to Parliament sooner or later, we want to learn from health workers whether unsafe abortion is really a problem that requires our intervention as people’s representatives and lawmakers.”

The heated debate over the proposed law has jolted parliamentarians to dispatch fact-finding missions to eight randomly selected districts—Mwanza, Blantyre, Mangochi, Zomba, Karonga, Mzimba, Dedza and Mchinji-last week.

Throughout, fiery figures of dying women, especially adolescent girls, hurried to hospitals with killer complications having used sticks, wires and toxic substances to get rid of unwanted pregnancies were gushing.  Some die of bleeding and infections or survive with injuries, disabilities and infertility, health workers said.

This left Musowa, a clinician himself, with a certainty that “there  is a big problem and need to do something about it.”

However, the campaign to loosen up penal laws that only allow termination of pregnancies when the life of the woman is in danger of death has put the lawmakers on a crash course with people who market the country as a God-fearing.

With the battle lines drawn, the MPs have come under scrutiny and pressure as the Bill awaits their nods or headshakes.

Women’s rights activists and champions of safe motherhood, argue that giving women more reasons to safely terminate pregnancies in health facilities will reduce maternal deaths and costs of treating complications of unsafe abortions.

However, pro-life agents, especially religious leaders, say this will promote killing. They preach that life begins at conception, with some planning to march to Parliament to petition the lawmakers to kick out the contentious Bill. The protests, being spearheaded by Evangelical Association of Malawi (EAM), reportedly seek to safeguard and celebrate the right to life.

Some religious leaders say the way MPs vote will determine their chance of re-election in 2019.

But Musowa says: “Parliament needs a healthy debate, not threats.  Concerned Malawians should freely share their views for their MPs to make informed decisions.  When we vote, the outcome should truly be the voice of Malawians.”

He reckons his committee has lined up meetings with the clergy, traditional leaders, the youth and other groups.

“We want to hear from them how best the country can reduce these deaths of women and girls,” he says.

But the issue is so sticky that Chilenje says “the country needs not go as far as passing an abortion law”, but intensify efforts to close gaps in provision of counselling, modern family planning methods and youth-friendly services.

Concurring, Thyolo Thava MP Mary Navitcha spoke of chikumbumtima (guilt conscience), urging the country to decisively confront causes of unsafe abortion.

Former minister Anna Kachikho offered a measured call to action against the needless deaths.

“I don’t want to talk about the Bill because our constituents look at abortion differently, but it is scary that women are dying with sticks in their wombs.  The worst hit are rural women, especially in constituencies like mine [Phalombe North], where health facilities are far apart and contraceptives are almost inaccessible to those who need to prevent unwanted pregnancy.”

At Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH) and Mwanza, health officials say the majority of patients seeking post-abortion care are adolescent girls and rural women who rarely survive because they present themselves in critical conditions.

Mwanza Central MP Paul Chibingu remembered women queuing to have their wombs cleaned up or operated on when he worked at QECH over two decades ago.

“We know the law allows termination of pregnancy when the life of the woman is in danger, but do health workers feel the need to relax the laws? During my time at Queens was terrible,” he says.

Current staff says the situation remains unchanged, with 20-30 queuing for evacuations and operations daily.

“We sometimes run out of tools and equipment as used ones have to be sterilised,” says Dr Gladys Gadama.

Ministry of Health estimates that government spends up to K300 million annually treating almost 70 000 who seek post-abortal care every year.

Keith Lepato, a nurse-cum-midwife in Mulanje, finds the existing law gender-biased, saying it “favours impregnators” who die of abortions.

He laments: “If you and I end up with an unwanted pregnancy today, we will quickly find tablets to eliminate it safely. But what will a helpless, rural girl use? Sticks? Wires? Poisons? n