The Catholic Church in Lagos has opposed the government’s move to legalise the termination of pregnancy in the state.
The State Ministry of Health had recently issued guidelines for the termination of pregnancy on health grounds.
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health, Dr Olusegun Ogboye, unveiled a 40-page policy document, entitled, “Lagos State Guidelines on Safe Termination of Pregnancy for Legal Indications” intended to facilitate legal termination of pregnancy in the state.
The Catholics said the move was unacceptable, describing it as nothing but a means of legalising abortion through the backdoor.
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“The guidelines are nothing but a way of creating room for indiscriminate procurement of abortion,” they contended.
The Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, Most Rev. Alfred Adewale Martins, said it was untrue that all stakeholders were consulted in the process of drawing up the guidelines. “The issue of abortion touches very much on ethical and religious sensibilities and religious bodies were not consulted, certainly, the millions of Catholics who have always maintained their strong opposition to the legalisation of abortion in any guise were not consulted.
“The baby in the womb is a person that is distinct from the mother even though he is in the mother’s womb and so not even the mother has the right to kill him, talk less of the government purporting to give legal backing for their murder.
“The Catholic Church and all ethically-minded people oppose all forms of abortion procedures whose direct purpose is to terminate the life of a baby in the womb. The unborn child has the right to live and be protected and not to be killed by the fiat of an unjust law. We believe strongly that every human life must be respected and protected especially the most vulnerable ones in the womb from the moment of their conception.
“There is nothing like an unwanted child because every child is a gift from God that should be nurtured and allowed to grow in fulfilment of their purpose in life. We need to continue to explore ways of providing support for those women who find themselves in difficulty as a result of their pregnancy rather than thinking of aborting a child who is innocent of the difficulty that the mother may be going through. Any attempt to terminate the life of the unborn child is tantamount to murder and should be treated as a capital offence. Our focus, therefore, should be on proper enlightenment on human sexuality and collaboration to support women who fall pregnant without being ready for the pregnancy.”
The Archbishop wondered why the Lagos State Government seemed anxious to legalize abortion, at a time when even the United States of America and other more advanced countries were reviewing their positions on the legalisation of abortion as seen in the recent judgement of the Supreme Court of the United States of America on the matter.
He, therefore, called on the Governor of the State, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu to call the Ministry of Health to order and stop the implementation of the guidelines on the so-called safe termination of pregnancies.
Archbishop Martins stressed, “The ministry did not consult wide enough to find the best approach to safeguarding the lives of pregnant women which the guidelines were supposed to protect”.