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Different Views In Senegal Over Proposal To Decriminalize Abortion




DAKAR, Senegalese lawyers have differed after a United Nations body recommended that the country should decriminalize abortion.
The UN Human Rights Committee has urged Senegal to review its legislation with a view of decriminalizing abortion and making it legal.
"Abortion should be legalized in case of danger to the life or health of the pregnant woman, rape, incest or a fatal medical condition," the committee said in its recommendations.
This position is supported by the chairperson of Senegal Bar Association Fanta Gueye Ndiaye who noted that "by decriminalizing abortion, Senegal will be conforming to its regional and international commitments."
"Our country ratified in 2004 a protocol of the African Charter on reproductive health which, in its article 14, stipulates that abortion could be authorized in case a pregnancy results from rape or incest or if there's great danger to the life of the mother or foetus," she recalled.
"We are not talking of murder but the right to life of the person carrying the infant," she explained.
According to Fatou Kine Camara, a lecturer of Law at the Cheikh Anta Diop university in Dakar, the number of rape cases is "alarming," and "64 percent of girls aged between 13 to 18 years have been in prison for killing children."
"Studies have shown that prohibition of abortion does not prevent women from resorting to this method because there are 51,000 cases of illegal abortions every year," she said when she spoke recently to an international radio station.
"Most women die or get deadly diseases such as fistula by resorting to illegal methods of abortion," she said.
We have gone to many Senegalese religious leaders to explain to them that abortion is not opposition to religion but it is a means for saving the life of the mothers and the infants," Madam Camara concluded.
Another Dakar based lawyer, Ousmane Seye, agrees with the position of these legal specialists.
"Right to reproductive health is a fundamental right but the Senegalese law severely punishes interruption of a pregnancy since it is considered as a crime," he noted.
"After 180 days of pregnancy, abortion becomes murder. It is prohibited unless if it is authorized by the law," Seye affirmed.
"There should be three Muslim or Christian doctors to ascertain that the pregnancy is posing a danger to the life of the mother before an abortion can be authorized," he explained.
However, Mbaye Niang, a Senegalese Islamic scholar, said "decriminalization of abortion should not take place in Senegal because both religions that are widely practised in the country, Christianity and Islam, prohibit the practice."
"We should not justify abortion by following international and regional commitments," he said, adding that "in many instances, we should not follow recommendations of the UN or human rights organizations which go against our beliefs."He said according to religion, "incest or rape cannot be considered as sufficient arguments to justify abortion."
"By defending abortion, the human rights organizations are also contradicting themselves because at the same time, they have been calling for abolition of death penalty," Niang concluded.
News Xinhua

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