Nomboniso Gasa writes how as a child in rural South Africa she discovered what abortion was, in an open letter to ANCmembers of Parliament
LIKE many of you, it was not at university or as a result of “Western influence” that I learnt of abortion. I was seven years old when I first heard the Xhosa word ukuqhomfa (to abort). It was in a village at Ntshingeni, St Marks, in Cofimvaba. A telegram arrived for my mother to tell the family of a young woman that she had died – while aborting. This was not the last. Throughout my childhood and as a young woman, we heard of people who had aborted, we saw foetuses and sometimes fully developed babies in the rivers, in the dongas and where women went to collect firewood. In answering my nagging questions, my dad snapped and said, “Once and for all let me answer you, and after this just shut up! Abortion is real, unpleasant, frightening and it happens. But, I do not want to talk about it, we do not talk about it – people do not.” I was 12 years old. Of course I did not shut up.”
In the years that followed, my father and I made our peace – we did not talk about abortion but it always came to our doorstep.
My clearest memory is of a woman who came to our house because her husband had kicked her out. Her face was unrecognisable, he had hit her because she had “failed as a mother” because her daughter was pregnant. She came to ask my parents to take her to the doctor.
I see her face and feel her pain as she said to my mother, “MaRhadebe, what can I do? If the whole village did not know about this, I could make a `plan’. I am a devout, God- fearing Christian, but I swear to God I could do it. My daughter does not want this child, she says. She wants to make a `plan’. She says she does not care that the whole village knows about it. She wants to speak to Madlamini [an old midwife].” A couple of weeks later her daughter committed suicide.
For those of you who think you do not need to hear this, think twice. For those of you who think you know this, please be patient. You are about to make a very difficult decision. But, you have to bear in mind the responsibility you have. The issues are complex: your vote will either be for the continuation of the above misery or a “better life for all”.
This is not a “boundary” issue as it has been called by others. It is central to women’s emancipation.
The African National Congress as a movement has a history of commitment to women’s emancipation. In the decades of our struggle we have gone through different phases, we have grown with the notion of women’s emancipation. We moved from being a political movement that did not allow membership by women, to a much more vigorous attempt to address women’s issues. In this journey we went through different phases committed to building a just society for all.
Oliver Tambo made ground-breaking statements like “The oppression of women is embedded in our cultures, religious practices …” He urged us to do more than “pay lip service” to women’s emancipation. As we became more conscious of the complexity, we used a phrase: “the struggle for women’s liberation is a revolution within a revolution”.
In the 1990s we have pioneered policies, a Constitution and a Bill of Rights that have made women’s emancipation very central in our agenda.
The national machinery that is being set up and the policies that are being drawn are helping create and entrench a legal framework for emancipating women. All of this is commendable.
But the Termination of Pregnancy Bill, although highly charged and controversial, will go a long way in communicating your commitment and willingness to stick your necks out for women. In this business of women’s emancipation there are no safe zones.
In the 1980s we coined a phrase that said that there is no middle road. The progressive religious “fraternity”, as we called it then, was at the forefront of this approach. We said if you chose to be silent, if you chose to be neutral, then you chose the side of the mighty and powerful oppressor.
If you agree that the loss of life that results from illegal abortion is unnecessary, if you agree that the reproductive rights of women are central to human rights, then you will agree that free choice is the way to go.
Once more let me say (it has been said by others) that the Bill does not introduce abortion in South Africa, nor will it force women to terminate pregnancies. The Bill makes visible the suffering of many women in this country. It challenges the notion that the only ones that are entitled to choice are the rich and the middle-class.
The ANC has been able to rise to the challenges of the times in the past. We hope you will continue this tradition. The issue at hand is very emotive and sensitive. It is traversed with contradictions that arise out of our cultures, traditions, religions and the complexities of a society based on patrilineal heritage. The need to protect the integrity of our bodies is part of a struggle for equality and changing, unequal power relations. Patrilineal constraints need to be understood within the wider context of patriarchal relations which subordinate women.
In the same way in which the ANC and the broad democratic forces broke the silence enforced by apartheid oppression, we expect you to lead us in breaking the silence around women’s reproductive rights and sexuality.
The legal frameworks, the ground-breaking gains made by the Constitution, will have little meaning if we are denied a choice that is intimate, private, personal and painful. A choice about our bodies and reproductive rights.
This right is very threatening to the culture of patriarchy that prevails in our country. Obviously there will be an uproar. But, I do not believe that the majority of South Africans will turn their backs on the ANC. As an old and wise midwife of Chamama in Cofimvabe put it, “The very same women who pray in the church are the ones who at dusk run around seeking help because their daughters need help.”
You have to decide if you want women to continue living these schizophrenic lives. You have the power! The time is now!
— Nomboniso Gasa is a feminist activist