Legislation paving the way for registered nurses who have undergone prescribed training to perform abortions was approved in the National Assembly on Thursday, despite the objections of several opposition parties.
Democratic Alliance MP Ryan Coetzee said it was DA policy to allow its members to determine their own position on matters of conscience, including abortion.
”We understand and respect the fact that men and women of good intention may disagree on certain controversial issues, whether on grounds of religion or ethics. Consequently, each of our members here today will exercise a free vote on this Bill.”
Coetzee said many DA MPs, on both sides of the abortion debate, believed the Bill ”makes for very bad law”.
Those who opposed it were concerned that allowing already overburdened and under qualified nurses to perform abortions would increase the risk to pregnant women, and that doctors and nurses who opposed abortion would be put under still greater pressure to participate in abortion procedures against their will.
”The truth is that the public health sector simply does not have the capacity to provide quality healthcare to the people of our country. This Bill exposes that fact dramatically,” Coetzee said. Parties opposing the Bill included the African Christian Democratic Party, the United Christian Democratic Party, and the Freedom Front Plus (FF+).
In a division at the end of the brief debate, only 52 MPs voted against the measure, while 15 more abstained.
The Bill now goes to the National Council of Provinces for concurrence.
The FF+ said it found it tragic that emphasis was placed on the right of women to choose. Babies were not given a say or a choice.
”Life is a gift that should be protected and cherished,” the party’s Corne Mulder said in a statement.
The party also condemned what it said was an ANC policy that medical assistance should not be given to new-born babies weighing less than 1 000g.
”These babies are left to die… In one such case a new-born baby, weighing less than 1 000g grams, was left to just lie there for 48 hours until [it] died.”
In her reaction, Thembi Mngomezulu, chief negotiator for the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa) said nurses were angry at the outcome.
”This is going to fuel an untenable situation. We feel politicians are making decisions for us. Nurses are the victims of a system that is failing. This will impact on the already low morale of the public service.”
The majority of nurses affiliated with Denosa opposed legal abortion, but according to a statement by the Christian View Network, even those who supported legal abortion had problems with the Bill.
Major concerns included the lack of protection for conscientiously objecting nurses who were being pressured to assist with abortions against their will.
Denosa is an affiliate of the Congress of SA Trade Unions, an ally of the ANC. – Sapa