tt.humanist :: forum :: commentary :: crime

Empowerment of women, not simply abortion, may reduce violence

Published in Newsday
08 March 2007 • 355 words

Fired UNC Senator Harry Mungalsingh’s suggestion that abortion could be a crime-fighting measure has, more than anything else, revealed the poor calibre of politicians on both sides of the nation’s Parliament.

Mr Mungalsingh’s contention was based either on poor logic, or poor science, or some combination of both. There is no study which has shows a valid connection between legalizing abortion and reducing crime. If there is such a connection, it is quite indirect, in that societies which empower women through giving them choice also tend to socialize their young persons to be less violent.

This alone shows why it is absurd to label Mr Mungalsingh’s comment, wrong-headed though it may have been, as “genocide”. Genocide is always forced; legal abortion, on the contrary, widen citizens’ freedoms. All those who are opposed to abortion law reform are imposing their own beliefs, through force of law, on other individuals. To argue, as these persons do, that abortion is murder and murder is illegal is a hollow and hypocritical position. Abortion may be against the law, but women who have an abortion are not tried for murder nor are the doctors who carry out the procedure charged for being accessories to murder. Whether one considers a foetus a human being or not depends on whether your definition of “human” is purely biological or includes consciousness.

But none of these questions engages our politicians. The UNC has removed Mr Mungalsingh and the PNM continues to ignore this issue that annually endangers the lives of hundreds of women in Trinidad and Tobago. Meanwhile, the racists blare about genocide, not only twisting the issue for their own nefarious and narrow ends, but cheapening the plight of the thousands who have been and are being murdered in a genuine genocide in the Sudan.

T&T Humanist Association

See Abortion clause is an abuse of the Constitution

See Catholics criticise Government's Draft Gender Policy?

See Draft National Gender Policy and Action Plan