“THE SAFE MOTHERHOOD LAW (2012)” Key concepts of the proposed law; a critical overview If passed, this law will be one of the most oppressive laws Africa has ever experienced
Violates the basic law contained in the constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania, Art.6 on the right to life of every human being and the right of society to safeguard that life; and the Penal Code Sect. 150, 151, 152 prevents attempts to try, to aid and to use equipment to terminate pregnancy; and 219 prevents the termination of pregnancy that is capable of living independent of her mother
Undermines and by-passes African cultural and moral values, e.g. in the raising of children
Disregards religious laws and practices on marriage
Contradicts itself;
while minors as young as 11 years old are forced into contraception; the same kids are not allowed to marry until 18 years old – thus indirectly promoting abortion to minors
while the bill is on “Safe Motherhood”, yet the whole document puts emphasis on reproductive health - with emphasis on contraception to minors and young people [part I, II, IV, VII; only on part III does it talk on motherhood]
termination of pregnancy – part V has been enforced in the strongest terms unlike the soft language used in the Safe Motherhood section
Decriminalizes all laws that protect life thus making abortion on demand mandatory – even without reason and places a penalty on a health care provider who refuses to perform an abortion
Criminalizes pro-life and church teachings on contraception
Makes contraception universally accessible and mandatory to minors without parental consent
Superimposes government powers on family life; thus jeopardizing family confidentiality on matters of family life
To be implemented by draconian measures
The document
To be presented to the Parliamentarian Safe Motherhood Working Group on February 2012
PART I: PRELIMINARY PROVISIONS
This Act may be cited as the Safe Motherhood Act, 2012
This Act shall apply to mainland Tanzania in relation to promotion of universal access to maternal, sexual and reproductive health services and protection of reproductive rights
Definitions
The document makes definitions regarding some concepts, for example:
“contraception” means the deliberate prevention of pregnancy by measures that prevent the normal process f ovulation, fertilization and implantation
“emergency contraception” means contraceptive methods used by women immediately following unprotected sexual intercourse to prevent pregnancy
“termination of a pregnancy” means the separation and expulsion, by medical or surgical means, of the contents of the uterus of a pregnant woman
[an absurdity, how can a woman remain pregnant while she has dismembered her unborn baby? ]
PART II: ACCESS TO CONTRACEPTIVES AND FAMILY PLANNING The Act is so pervasive that it takes away parental responsibilities over family matters, like responsible parenthood and places it on the hands of the government and restricts the church and pro-life organizations from talking on the evils of contraception and abortion. Why should it be an offense to tell users the truth about the physical and psychological hazards caused by contraception? It is violation of natural justice to silence people on matters of truth. Who will be answerable to women who will be suffering from using contraceptives?
The government shall ensure individual rights to control fertility, decide number and spacing of children, be informed and choose any method of contraception are respected and promoted
It shall be the duty of government to provide access to contraception and family planning services including commodities, counseling, information and education
5… [f] Eliminate restrictions on contraception including regulatory obstacles and prohibitions on the dissemination and information regarding contraceptives
PART III: MATERNAL AND NEWBORN HEALTH The Act is to be coercively enforced through government health care system,
12. The government shall:
Ensure that each village has a dispensary, each division has a health center and each district has a hospital
Employ an adequate number of midwives to achieve at least a minimum ratio (1) fulltime skilled birth attendant for every five (5) deliveries everyday
Ensure health facilities have adequate and qualified personnel, equipment and supplies for offering emergency obstetric care
PART IV: SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH OF ADOLESCENTS Young people as young as 11 year olds to be provided with and have access to contraceptive and abortion services without parental consent and wave/ deprive parental upbringing of their children If by definition, a child is any person below 18 years of age, we do not expect this group of people to found a family. And as long as they are “children” they do not deserve to be treated like adults in matters of contraception. Enforcing contraception into children is violation their rights of being brought up as children into adulthood. If the law prohibits marriage of minors below 18 years, then it should equally forbid exposing the same children into contraception because they do not qualify and therefore doing the contrary amounts to child abuse and child exploitation.
14. (2) In the provision of sexual and reproductive health services to adolescents
a) parental consent shall not be mandatory
c) all legal and regulatory barriers to adolescent sexual and reproductive health shall be removed [that means we should not teach our children virtues of faithfulness, chastity and abstinence]
PART V: TERMINATION OF PREGNANCY Paving the way for unlimited abortion on demand; only one health care provider can decide to kill an unborn baby; physically handicap children – to be eliminated. Who consults the other; the pregnant woman or the health care provider? To implement the abortion agenda, … the minister will designate abortion centers from among existing health centers – abortion clinics to become a reality in Tanzania against the will of its people. Abortion will then be treated like a health need, a family planning method. People may die from malaria or AIDS, but they will never miss an abortion service. Abortion will then be prescribed as a medical treatment to a woman with physical or mental health problems. Instead of taking into task the offender – the rapist, the law suggests we kill an innocent child who did not choose to be conceived from rape or incest. The issue here is not that somebody appreciates the pregnancy; the core issue is that someone has a baby in her womb, a living human being. It should be task of the society to safeguard the life of the child.
17. (1) A pregnancy may be terminated if a health care provider, in consultation with the pregnant woman, is of the opinion that
a) the continued pregnancy would pose a risk or injury to the woman’s physical or mental health
b) there exists a substantial risk that the fetus would suffer from a severe physical or mental abnormality
c) the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest
d) the pregnant woman, on account of being a mentally disordered person, is not capable of appreciating pregnancy
PART VII: HARMFUL PRACTICES AFFECTING SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH Priests, Pastors and Imams will be prohibited by law and will be convicted if found guilty on officiating marriages to girls under 18 years old
25. (2) Any person who is a party to a ceremony purporting to be a marriage knowing or having reason to believe that the other party is below the minimum age for marriage shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding five hundred thousand shillings
26. Any person found conducting or aiding the performance of the above practices shall be guilty of an offence
PART VIII: IMPLEMENTING AND ENFORCEMENT MECHANISM The law will have implementing and enforcement mechanism in place: this means those who want to enforce the law are determined to do so at any cost and those who would appear to OPPOSE will be prosecuted. Conclusion The law follows on the footsteps of the Maputo Protocol. Having failed to enforce abortion in our country through the Maputo Protocol, they are now using ‘the back door’ to enforce the same agenda – abortion on demand. While the Maputo Protocol was secretly enforced by IPPF and UNFPA, the current Safe Motherhood Act has been written and is being marketed by CARE INTERNATIONAL. It is pure western imperialism and foreign ideology being imposed on our African culture. The objective of this law, in the mind of those who formulated it , is not to help improve the health of pregnant mothers, rather to make contraception and abortion widely accessible to women of all ages, regardless of their marital status and age. And, worse still, the law wants to make our government accountable for meeting the costs of those evil services. The anticipated result of this law is to create barrenness among our women and to impose mass genocide in the womb and ultimately depopulating our country. As the deadline for the Millenium Development Goals is drawing nearer, the UN and its implementing organs realizes that most African countries have not legalized abortion, neither have they institutionalized contraception. So, to them, it is a failure. That is why; they are now using all coercive means available to bulldoze African governments into enacting laws against its culture and at the expense of its people. This is a devilish agenda. We cannot allow it to take place. We know, as they well know they can only do so if they suppress the growing population of young people and next generations of African countries. We will never allow Western countries who want to exploit our natural resources to push us that far. We are going to fight tooth and nail to make sure that the “Safe Motherhood Law” does not pass.