Lilongwe, Malawi, Mar 23, 2021 / 20:01 pm America/Denver (CNA).
Malawi’s National Assembly earlier this month declined to debate a bill that would expand the grounds for procuring an abortion.
The Nyasa Times reported that “almost all MPs shouted ‘No’” when it was suggested March 11 that the bill be debated.
The bill would permit abortion in circumstances of rape, incest, fatal fetal impairment, or when pregnancy endangers the mother’s physical or mental health. Abortion is currently criminalized in Malawi except in cases of saving the mother's life.
Mathews Ngwale, an independent MP who aligns with the Democratic Party, introduced the bill. Ngwale is head of the Parliamentary Health Committee.
Father Henry Saindi, a spokesman for the Malawi bishops’ conference, told The Nation, a Blantyre daily, in September 2020, “I know they are trying to coin some phrases such as safe abortion, but what we are saying is that abortion is abortion. Regardless of how life came about, life is sacred…We say no to whatever is being proposed”.