The Abortion Lie of "Saving Lives"

Letter to the Editor

Cheryllyn Dudley MP (ACDP)

Tuesday, 18 June 2002



Dear Sir,

Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is reported to have said South Africa’s public health system should take its responsibility for eliminating abortion linked deaths more seriously (Cape Times 13 June02). Her concern specifically is that terminations of unborn babies are apparently being denied because too few health workers are prepared to perform the procedure. MP’s, department officials and pro-abortion organisations have called at various times for more pressure to be placed on health workers to comply even when it means health workers must violate their consciences.

The Minister and other pro-abortion advocates like Professor Helen Rees of Lovelife, Planned Parenthood Association of South Africa (PPASA), Reproductive Rights Alliance (RRA) and the Medicines Control Council, refer to abortion as “saving women’s lives”. In fact the RRA who funded, organised and provided all the presenters at the CTOP Hearings at Parliament in May this year, says it this way: “It is critical that within the next leg of the struggle to ensure that choice becomes a reality in South Africa, that a strategic shift is made at a community level, health system level and broader social level to an understanding that those involved in TOP service delivery are doing so to promote women’s health and well being and based on a strong ethical notion of protecting life.”

In their clearly defined strategy to accomplish their wicked ends they stress the importance of presenting abortion as “life-saving”, confusing abortion with women’s rights and choice, capitalising on past and present hardships and hurts of women, and values clarification indoctrination which helps people to separate their beliefs and values from circumstances.

The “saving lives” claim is however a gross distortion of the facts and cannot even be backed up by their own statistics which show that “back-street” abortions have not decreased, only infections have, thanks to Professor Rees and the unregistered and dangerous, but readily available RU486 drug. Termination of pregnancy is no “life saver”, but has in fact taken the lives of 220,888 babies in the last five years over and above any lives lost in “back-street” abortions.

To back up their false claims RRA quote exorbitant figures in reference to women who die in “unsafe abortions” but downplay the fact that these are global figures and in fact very few South African women die due to back street abortions, and certainly not 220,888 which is the number of babies which have been legally terminated over the past 5 years.

Professor Helen Rees was the keynote speaker at the recent CTOP hearings. Her pro-death work in South Africa lobbying for and overseeing implementation of abortion, earned her an OBE, an award for service to the British crown. My question was and still is “How exactly is aborting South African babies in the national interest of Britain?”

RRA’s strategy also targets communities, who they say, waver in their conviction against abortion. “The duality of the community morality in accessing the service when it directly impacts on them, despite so called moral objections, has to be fully utilised as a firm lever through which to shift the paradigm”, they say. The goal being, to increase the number of terminations.

RRA reports show that there are 309 TOP facilities designated by government, of which 255 are public and 54 are private, however only 131 facilities are functional and this is what is causing the minister, MP’s and pro-abortion organisations concern. Many health workers who are involved are traumatised and angry at having to be, although RRA managed to bring a Cuban Doctor and a midwife who adamantly stressed that they were proud of the work they do. Presently the pressure on health workers is subtle intimidation, as they are employees of the state and are naturally concerned about their jobs and promotions. Health workers are also subjected to values clarification indoctrination, and of course veiled threats of impending action against them, by the Minister, MP’s and officials.


Cheryllyn Dudley MP
African Christian Democratic Party