Imo, Nigeria, Jun 15, 2009 / 16:08 pm
By a vote of 13-1, the legislature in the small state of Imo, Nigeria rejected the Reproductive Rights Bill last week, marking a pro-life victory in a state whose rich heritage, culture and religious traditions welcome life and respect the lives of unborn children.
It was a decision that the national Nigerian newspaper This Day described as a “victory of the superior Imo cultural values over the new global Western Cultural Revolution” and “yet another triumph of reason… a triumph of democracy and the popular will.”
While the Reproductive Rights Bill claimed to deal with women’s reproductive health, it would have effectively legalized abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy. Imo, a pro-life state, has rejected several attempts to legalize abortion, with the most recent being in 2006.
Large crowds of citizens ranging from school children to religious sisters to civil servants marched to the Imo State House of Assembly and protested the Bill last Monday morning.
Although the Public Hearing was scheduled for noon, all seats in the hearing room were filled by 7:00 a.m. Thousands of demonstrators overflowed outside the building, holding signs reading, “Children are our values,” “Reproductive right is abortion,” and “Imo mothers love children.”
Advocates of the Reproductive Rights Bill had defended it by saying that it never mentioned abortion and was aimed solely at promoting the health of Imo women. However, euphemisms within the Bill included phrases such as “control of fertility,” “timing, number, and spacing of their children,” and “choice of methods of fertility control and family planning,” all of which have been consistently interpreted in countries where abortion is legal as giving women the right to both abortion and contraceptives.