Response to Bishop Charlesworth Browne. Is Dignity a Human Right?

Dear Editor:

Is Dignity a Human Right?

We appreciate the impassioned statement from Kingdom Leaders that abortion is not a human right AntiguaNewsroom, October 23).

Can a girl who is raped and forced by the state to carry a pregnancy to term have dignity?

What is, or is not, a human right is a matter of declaration.  Antigua and Barbuda is a member of the World Health Organization which has declared access to abortion as health care and so a human right.  

We have made no such claim.

Our approach to abortion law is rooted in health and in the social harm of restrictive laws.

We regard rights as the means to an end.  For us, that end is the dignity of safe motherhood.

Kingdom Leaders is proud of its opposition to the COVID vaccine and yet exhorts us to provide “solid scientific facts.”

On one hand they reject life-saving science and on the other demand data “grounded in statistics.”

We have done exactly that.  We now know that among women attending public health clinics, 80% report their first pregnancy was unplanned, 26% report being victims of childhood sexual abuse, 20% report being victims of partner violence and that the main reasons for their non-use of contraceptives include cost, fear of methods and partner objection.

We know that 85% of so-called teen pregnancies result from relations with men 20 years and older.

We know that about 70% of women in the state will have at least one abortion by age 44. Which means that about the same proportion of men have been party to those abortions.  Abortion is normal.

This quiet carnage of women by men is the grand “moral fabric” of the society that Kingdom Leaders claims it wants to preserve.

Restrictive abortion laws do not prevent abortions, and they do not protect the sanctity of life. They are ignored by women of means and they harm poor and young women.

They criminalize and stigmatize health care and suppress the reproductive education and public discussion we need.

Sincerely,

ASPIRE

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