The Tribune

By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

SOCIAL Services Minister Obie Wilchcombe said it is wrong to force a raped person to give birth to a child.

“There have to be some issues,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “We have to look at that. It’s very difficult when you consider circumstances that could affect somebody’s life forever.”

The highly restrictive nature of the country’s abortion laws were highlighted last week after a mother gave abortion pills to her 11-year-old daughter who was allegedly raped by her stepfather. The mother was charged this week with, among other things, causing harm for the purpose of committing an abortion.

Abortion is illegal in The Bahamas in all cases except to save the mother’s life.

Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis told The Tribune earlier this week he sees abortion exemptions in cases of rape as a “medical matter” he “would have to consider”.

He also described abortion as a personal choice.

Asked if the government would consider revising abortion laws, Mr Wilchcombe said: “It’s not come up recently, to be honest with you. It’s only come up now that we heard of the incident just last week.”

“The truth is globally, other countries have had to take the same course of action and they’ve had to make some decisions. It cannot be right if somebody is raped to have to endure the pregnancy.”

In a later interview with The Tribune yesterday, Mr Wilchcombe said although abortion has not dominated public discourse in recent years, he believes the door has now opened for discussion.

“We’ll have to talk to the Bahamian people again about it and see exactly where we ought to go,” he said. “But let’s appreciate that for years, these subjects have been off for discussion. They’ve not been on the landscape for dialogue. It’s been almost taboo in some circumstances to have the dialogue. But now it’s opened, and now we want to take a look at it again.”

Health and Wellness Minister Dr Michael Darville also said he supports abortion being at the forefront of public discussion, though he declined to give his view.

“The issue of abortion, I think, needs to come back to the forefront,” he said during an Office of the Prime Minister press briefing yesterday. “Personally, I don’t want to bring in my personal opinion, but I do support the fact that we need now to bring it to the forefront and discuss it in the open as it relates to what may be happening in the country and what the law says.”

Attorney General Ryan Pinder declined to give his view on the matter, saying he’s a “creature of instruction”.

“Once those conversations have happened and there is a recommendation of government, that is when I will affect whatever the recommendation of government,” he said.