Staff writer
The abortion debate will once again spark off next week after the parliamentary standing committee on gender equality, social development and family affairs announced new dates for the public hearing.
The committee has scheduled the hearings to continue in the Zambezi, Ohangwena and Kavango East regions from Tuesday, 31 May to Thursday, 02 June 2022.
“The parliamentary standing committee on gender equality, social development and family affairs will conduct public
hearings on the three petitions received by the National Assembly with regard to the legalisation and non-legalisation of Abortion in Namibia, as well as the call to liberalise or reform the current Abortion and Sterilisation Act No. 2 of 1975.
The petitions from various interest groups were received in 2020 and referred to the committee for further consideration. The
committee has so far conducted public hearings with the petitioners, line ministries and other stakeholders in Windhoek. In addition, public hearings have been conducted in the Erongo, Omaheke, Hardap and //Kharas regions,” a statement by parliament’s acting public relations officer, Rafael Hangula.
The hearings sparked fierce national debates after they kicked off in Windhoek last year.
Parliament received two petitions, one-pro choice and the other pro-life, which have split the nation on the matter.
“The consequences of abortion in demand is it is a wound to the soul; secondly, a wound to the body – and then there is a society that is also wounded. This lady going for abortion is also wounding all of us. “Quite often, these people have now a bad conscience of what they have done to their child – and when they look at children, they think of how theirs would have been and they try to suppress these feelings by using drugs and alcohol,” Francois Louw of the Coalition of Churches said last year.
However, Ndiilokelwa Nthengwe from Voices for Choices and Rights Coalition had argued that the current law on abortion should be repealed and replaced with new legislation that upholds the right to access safe abortion services.
“Abortion should be permitted on request in the first trimester of pregnancy without the approval of doctors, psychiatrists or magistrates. Victims of rape or incest should not be required to provide documentation to obtain an abortion. After the 20th week, termination of pregnancy should be permissible if a doctor or midwife finds that continuing the pregnancy will threaten the woman’s health or cause severe handicap to the foetus,” Nthengwe said.
She also argued that women between 13 and 20 weeks of gestation should be able to have an abortion if a medical practitioner believes it is detrimental to the woman’s mental or physical health.
