Niki Moore
The Termination of Pregnancy Act will shortly be tested in the Mtuba-tuba Magistrate’s Court when a 19-year-old unmarried woman will be charged with performing an abortion while not being a medical practitioner.
The woman, who cannot be named, aborted her own foetus and buried the body in a forestry plantation on the outskirts of the Zululand town of Mtubatuba.
On Friday, police received a complaint from one of the woman’s neighbours, who lives in Somkhele reserve just outside Mtubatuba. The neighbour said that the woman had been pregnant and then, at the beginning of last week “had suddenly not been pregnant”.
When the neighbours had asked the woman what had happened to her pregnancy they were not happy with her explanation and went to lay a complaint with the police.
“The neighbours suspected that the girl had aborted the baby and they did not like that, so they went to lay a complaint,” said police spokesman Musa Khaba. Police arrested the woman on Friday. She confessed that she had aborted the baby by taking herbs (muti) and had buried the foetus in the forest.
Investigating officer V Magubane from the Mtubatuba police took the woman to point out where the foetus had been buried. It was exhumed and sent for a post-mortem.
The woman appeared in the magistrate’s court on Friday, charged with abortion. However, the case was thrown out as the magistrate pointed out that abortion was no longer illegal. The woman was released.
On Monday the investigating officer was ordered to re-open the case as there is a section in the Termination of Pregnancy Act that forbids an abortion to be performed by anyone who is not a registered medical practitioner. New charges have been formulated and a warrant of arrest has been issued for the woman. She will be charged with murder, or alternatively with contravention of Section 10 (1)(b) of the Termination of Pregnancy Act 99 of 1996.
Condemnation of the woman’s behaviour by her community has been widespread. “We cannot allow girls just to murder their babies,” said one of her neighbours. Even the fact that the woman was young, unmarried and without any visible means of support did not soften this view, which was held by much of the community.
“What happens if the father wanted to keep the baby?” the neighbour continued.
Khaba said that the police were prosecuting the case because the woman’s actions could have had repercussions.
“Abortions are not illegal, but there is a process that must be followed,” he said. “We cannot allow young girls to do these things in secret and then bury the body. What happens if we, the police, find human bones and we don’t know where they come from?”
Contravention of Section 10 of the Termination of Pregnancy Act carries a minimum sentence of 10 years.
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