A new draft Bill will reopen the abortion debate, reports Gaye Davis
DRAFT legislation giving women the right to have their pregnancies terminated on request is expected to go before Cabinet in April.
Minister of Health Dr Nkosazana Zuma this week confirmed a draft Bill was being finalised by her department but said she could not comment further as it had not yet reached her desk.
It is understood that the draft Bill is based largely on the recommendations of an ad hoc parliamentary committee which last year heard thousands of submissions from pro-choice and anti-abortion lobbies countrywide.
While the report was adopted by Parliament, this did not mean parties supported its recommendations to liberalise abortion law.
Zuma should have little trouble getting the draft Bill approved by Cabinet: where there is no consensus on an issue it is put to the vote, and the African National Congress holds the majority of Cabinet seats.
The real battle is expected in Parliament, when the legislation comes before the portfolio committee on health, and up against widely differing party positions.
The Democratic Party’s spokesman on health, Mike Ellis, this week predicted “an absolute bunfight”.
In terms of a national congress decision last year, DP MPs would be bound to support legislation allowing women freedom of choice to have an abortion within the first trimester of pregnancy, Ellis said. However, the party was opposed to allowing abortions as late as 24 weeks and would “scrutinise the draft Bill’s wording very closely”.
National Party MPs will be allowed a free vote, meaning they can vote according to their individual consciences. NP MP Sheila Camerer said while the party supported amending the law to improve women’s access to legal abortions, the party was opposed, on moral and religious grounds, to “abortion on demand for family planning purposes”.
Camerer said she believed the ANC was trying to “constitutionalise” the right to abortion on demand by bringing a new version of the clause relating to the security of the person, which deals with reproductive rights.
ANC MP Naledi Pandor denied this, saying the ANC’s constitutional proposal went “far beyond the single sub-clause dealing with reproductive matters”, which reflected a position taken at the Cairo conference on women and which had been supported by all parties, including the NP.
While ANC MPs are known to be divided on the issue of abortion, the ANC’s official position is that women should have the right to choose. The question of a free vote thus did not apply, Pandor said. But she added it was a matter “which requires discussion by the NEC and the caucus”.
The Inkatha Freedom Party is split on the issue and MPs are under intense pressure from traditional and religious groupings in KwaZulu-Natal to take an anti-abortion stand. IFP MP Sue Vos said party leader Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi had given his backing to a free vote on the issue.
The Freedom Front and the African Christian Democratic Party are opposed to abortion on request, while the PAC supports freedom of choice “within a regulatory framework”, according to MP Patricia de Lille.
In its report, the ad hoc parliamentary committee recommended that the Abortion and Sterilisation Act of 1975, which allows abortion only under strict circumstances, be repealed, and that:
l a new act provide for abortion, on request, up to 14 weeks and up to 24 weeks under certain specified conditions. It is understood that these conditions, which included a woman’s socio-economic circumstances, have been tightened up in the draft Bill;
l procedures for getting an abortion be simplified; that health workers other than doctors be trained to carry them out and that health facilities be provided or upgraded to improve access to abortions for women in areas poorly served by doctors;
l pre and post-abortion counselling be offered and that it be mandatory for minors seeking abortions;
l a partner’s consent not be required and that a minor be advised to consult her family but not be denied an abortion if she chose not to; and
l that health workers with conscientious objections to taking part in abortions be allowed to excuse themselves, but be bound to refer a woman to others willing to help her.
During the committee’s investigations, it emerged that most legal abortions (about 1 000 a year) were performed on white women with the resources and know-how to work their way through the bureaucratic red-tape. The present act thus discriminated against poorer, less educated and rural women.