By: Mohamed M. Sesay
The Ministry of Health and Sanitation on Friday the 15th of July 2022, held a stakeholders engagement at the Family Kingdom Resort, on the Proposed Abortion Bill dubbed “Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Bill”.
According to the Deputy Minister of Health and Sanitation Princess Dugba, the engagement was to educate the general public on the Bill despite the bill has not been developed.
The Deputy Minister also explained that the bill is a proposed bill and it is not yet being presented to the law officers department for further discussions. She intimated that the Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Bill if enacted, would take care of mothers, girls and even men would also benefit from such bill. She added that the bill has provisions that would benefit mothers and kids.
“We will be talking about family planning, motherhood, pregnancy wherein we make sure that people are having free health care. If they are pregnant they will be taking care of the process on how they will go about it also the government will be behind them to make sure that they have their babies. Those are the major things that we are going to look at” she explained.
Madam Dugba furthered that the proposed bill is not only for pregnant women. She said the bill also seeks to address another issue for school-going kids such as sex education which would be incorporated into the school curriculum.
From the point of young people, Edmond Alie Fornah, Executive Director, Kids Advocacy Network admonished that the Proposed Bill is very timely stating that, over the years they have been lobbying government to add sex education into the school curriculum. He said if they have the bill now, it would give the Ministry of Education a total mandate for students to have more knowledge on sexual reproductive rights and also sex education and how girls will know how to take care of themselves.
He emphasized the timeliness of the bill because the bill also catered for abortion and the protection of girls from unwanted pregnancy. “I think one of the most important things young people need is information, we need information. For instance, I am not talking about more of the Western Area here; some girls are in far-to-reach areas in the country who do not know what is menstruation. They also do not know how to protect themselves from sex. So I think if they should include it in the proposed bill, it could be compulsory for sex education to be in the curriculum.
Jeremy Simbo from the Center for Accountability and Rule of Law also elaborated that the proposed bill is a very good law for women and girls. He reiterated that the bill is very much time and encouraged the public to support the process. He said the issue of Safe Motherhood is very serious in the country adding that, it is good that the country has such a Bill that aims to decriminalize abortion and most of the issues that have to do with women. “For example, the termination of pregnancy is forbidden. So for us, as a country to have a bill of this nature for me is good. So I am encouraging everyone to support this process so that we will have a better law” he concluded
