A young Christian girl of 21 years engages in pre-marital sex, and unfortunately she gets pregnant. As the pregnancy matures, she finds it hard to hide it. She decides to come to you seeking for abortion as she realizes that she is going to be discovered. She even asks you to keep it as a secret, and that you would be rewarded for the job well done. As a Health Care Practitioner, after listening to her request, you refuse because your faith and professional ethics do not support abortion except on conditions recommended by the physician. Because of fear of being discovered, she goes home and commits suicide, destroying the pregnancy as well. As a Christian Health Care Practitioner, you feel justified with your actions because you are respecting the law of protection of life, you are protecting the law of justice and you want to keep your loyalty to your professional vows/pledge.

An analysis

Entangled within the largely philosophical grand debate that is Pro-life vs Pro-choice, the former criminalising abortion and the latter supporting it, many girls and women have had to take the spectator’s seat and consequently put every decision into question.
This particular twenty-one-year-old girl happened to make the wrong decision to engage in pre-marital sex without sufficient protection. It is important to note that she was a fully rational adult above the age of eighteen years and thus had the right to sexual intercourse and full responsibility for her actions per the Penal Code Act, Article 129 of the 1995 Constitution of Uganda.
Her request to abort the pregnancy was rightfully rejected by the healthcare practitioner in recognition of Article 22, Item 2 of the Law of Protection of Right to Life that explicitly states, ‘No person has the right to terminate the life of an unborn child except as may be authorised by the law.’ She did not qualify for an exception by the Uganda Ministry of Health’s 2006 National Policy Guidelines and Service Standards for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights that permits abortion when rape, sexual violence, incest, HIV/AIDS, cervical cancer and/or risk of death are in the equation. Devoid of these exceptions, attempting to procure an abortion is criminalized by Section 141 of the Penal Code of 1950 that would have seen the healthcare practitioner serve a minimum of 14 years in prison.
However, recognizing the fact that this healthcare practitioner is an emotionally aware and trained handler, largely guided by good morals and genuine concern, she is at fault for not providing adequate mental and emotional support to this young, sentimental and emotionally weak girl to keep her from the tipping point of taking her own life. Having acknowledged the fact that this girl was young, trying to hide the pregnancy and making the wrong decision to abort, one should have identified the need for full-on counselling, advice and a promise of help when needed. The commitment of suicide is as a direct result of intense emotional pressure that a well-trained holistic practitioner should be able to identify and alleviate.
The fundamental law that forbids abortion should surely also provide solutions for when bad decisions are made, which could include but should not be limited to guidance and counseling. The healthcare practitioner is completely innocent and not at fault as per the law but is deserving of a guilty conscience for not providing sufficient emotional support and/or counselling to prevent suicide.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the law in such a case?

Uganda has three main laws that guide the judgment of cases concerning abortion.
Article 22(2) of the Constitution of Uganda clearly deems abortion illegal except under authorization by the government. The Penal Code of 1950 goes on to criminalize attempts to procure abortion both by health workers and abortion seekers while also giving minimum sentences in case of conviction. To make up for the lack of exceptions in the law where abortion can be granted, Uganda Ministry of Health’s 2006 National Policy Guidelines and Service Standards for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights specifies instances where abortion is allowed, including but not limited to incest and rape. Admittedly these laws have bulletable strengths such as some of the following .
These laws have protected the lives of unborn children without which abortion, which can be characterized as subconscious murder, would be prevalent. They also prioritise the life of the mother in cases where continued pregnancy is fatal. The dignity of the mother is also prioritized since abortion is permitted in instances of rape, incest and defilement which would detrimentally harm the image of the mother. Furthermore, these laws uphold the biblical law which refers to foetuses as living and divine creatures; this has helped preserve the biblical law and promoted its application in judicial systems.
However, these protection laws are not without their shortcomings. Firstly, a critic would argue that these laws do not take the initiative to define what a living being is and at what point foetuses can be classified as living beings. As a result, protection laws have been subject to multitudes of philosophical arguments and have been constantly undermined by an ever growing liberal international audience.
The circumstances under which abortion is acceptable are not clearly defined by the constitution of Uganda despite various outcries to amend Article 22(2) of the Constitution. Consequently, even the Ministry of Health’s guidelines are merely cherry picked by authorities as scenarios of police officers arresting people who had undergone abortion legally have previously been unearthed.
If you have experienced the agony of trying to procure an abortion or personally know someone who did, then you might agree that the law is not dynamic enough to cater for varying instances in which abortion should ideally be legal. Many have asserted that getting pregnant at a very young age as well as extreme poverty should qualify as circumstances permitting abortion, but only to stir the debate to inconclusive realms.
One very heavily debated topic is the criminalisation of post-abortion care by authorities without authorizing law that has led to many abortion users living in fear of arrest and a number of recorded deaths due to failure to access post-abortion care. What’s worse, even the healthcare practitioners fear to provide these services. In Uganda, 89% of healthcare facilities with post abortion care facilities actively provide post abortion services which raises a question about the 11%. With the 89%, even with no law explicitly criminalising post-abortion care, many are arrested and this is detrimental to women’s access to a rather essential service.
In addition, while the Penal Code of 1950 only permits abortion by surgical operation, the Ministry of Health guidelines authorise the use of approved drugs like Misoprostol and Mifepristone. This has presented a contradiction in the law.
With a bird’s eye view, the protection laws go a long way in preventing unjustified abortion and upholding the biblical law but severely fall short of clarity and inclusion that makes handling of abortion cases very much an intuitive process than a lawfully guided one.

The Christian Perspective

Stretching as far back as the Biblical Age, the Christian position on abortion has always been one that disapproves the act. Quite crucial though to this argument is the fact that nowhere in the Bible does a law condemning abortion suffice. It is more of a natural law based on human values, conscience and intuition obtained when Adam and Eve ate the fruit of wisdom.
While many argue that a foetus is not a conscious being, quite a number of Biblical scriptures affirm the contrary.
Psalms 139:13; ‘You created every part of me, you put me together in my mother’s womb.’
Psalms 51:5; ‘I have been evil from the day I was born; from the time I was conceived I have been sinful.’
Jeremiah 1:4-5; ‘The lord said to me, “I chose you before I gave you life, and before you were born I selected you to be a prophet to the nations.’
Job 10:10-12; ‘…you made me grow in my mother’s womb. You formed my body with bones and sinews and covered the bones with muscles and skin.’
These and other biblical scriptures suggest that foetuses are beings with life and to abort them is equivalent to murder. This supports the decision made by the healthcare practitioner not to abort the child.
Professional ethics, a set of values stemming from natural law and further endorsed by positive law/government law, undoubtedly agree with Biblical teachings in many aspects, and nonetheless in this case.
The refusal to assist the abortion was in total agreement with the healthcare practitioner’s ethical responsibility not to do harm to the patient or perform any action on his/her part that is bad to the patient. This is because abortion greatly risks death and ¾ of abortion users suffer loss of productivity.
Furthermore, in this case, the principle of beneficence was followed as the healthcare practitioner balanced the benefits and harmful outcome and correctly determined that the potential harmful outcome was more prominent.
The healthcare practitioner also fulfilled his/her ethical responsibility to the law by not performing abortion, which is illegal and by turning down the bribe from the young girl which upheld his/her integrity.
He/she rightfully rejected the principle of autonomy in this case which would have meant that the girl would have had a right to decide how she would have liked her case to be handled in which case she would definitely have chosen to abort the pregnancy.
Needless to conclude, the healthcare practitioner’s decision was fully justified by the biblical law and principles of professional ethics.

To pass sentence or not to pass sentence?

Should the Biblical law therefore be taken for guiding principles or instead decisive actionable law?
Jesus surely acknowledged the Old Testament scriptures’ divine authority. Throughout his teachings he repeatedly referenced ‘the scriptures’, ‘the law’ and ‘the prophets’.

“think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them.”

Matthew 5:17.

He is further quoted in Luke 24:44-46, ‘Jesus said to them, “while I was still with you, I told you that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the books of the prophets and in the Psalms had to happen.” Then he helped them understand the scriptures. He told them, “the scriptures say that the Messiah must suffer, then 3 days later he will rise from death.”‘ One should reasonably conclude that Jesus considered the scriptures as divine law that was both binding and guiding. Consequently, so do Christians today.
Therefore, if the biblical law were to condemn abortion, then the Christian healthcare practitioner would have been firmly resolute. However, the biblical law on abortion has been subject to debate since it does not explicitly mention, let alone condemn abortion. This fact alone has presented a sizable loophole when using the biblical law to judge the acceptance of abortion. Also, nowhere are exceptions awarded in cases of the risk of the mother’s life, deadly diseases and other conditions that the law of the land conveniently provides. In a world where, increasingly, there is need for concrete reason and justification prior to decisive action, the biblical law just wouldn’t offer decisive justification on this case concerning abortion. However, the law of the land explicitly condemns abortion, provides punishments and awards exceptions too.
The immense diversity of faiths in the world including Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, to mention but a few necessitates a central universal law applicable across religious borders to define and unify what is wrong and right. Fortunately, the law of the land is in tandem with the biblical law especially in Christianity-dominated countries like Uganda and many conservative countries. The law of the land unifies all the widely accepted laws and beliefs from the religions present in the geographical boundaries. Just like the Qur’an, the Bible and other holy books offer guidance that opposes abortion, so the law of the land criminalizes abortion. Needless to say, Uganda is not a Christian theocracy, in which case the biblical law would be the sole deciding factor.
In my opinion, the biblical law, as it already is, should be the cornerstone for ethics and integrity as it is also a cornerstone for the law of the land but should not be used to directly judge such a case.

In a nutshell, the writer is Pro-life but would like to see adjustments made to cater for extremities and prevention and/or cure of adverse effects and great risks taken by abortion seekers to succeed. Couldn’t this be the ideal middle ground?

Key takeaways and suggestions

• Abortion still remains wrong
• The law should define what a human being is
• The law ought to exercise clarity
• Eliminate contradiction in the law
• Expand the scope of exceptions regarding abortion
• The biblical law is not solely decisive in legal cases
• Biblical law should be considered in judiciary for guidance
• Ethical values are derived from biblical law
• Emotional and mental support ought to be strengthened for mothers seeking abortion
• Equip healthcare practitioners with better decision making skills and clarify laws to facilitate this
• Biblical law holds humans’ best interests at heart
• Take responsibility of one’s sexual activity

REFERENCES

https://www.focusonthefamily.com/pro-life/is-the-bible-really-pro-life/

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/readers/2017/05/25/bible-instructs-followers-obey-government/343857001/

https://www.openbible.info/topics/laws_of_man

https://www.concourt.am/armenian/legal_resources/world_constitutions/constit/uganda/uganda-e.htm#:~:text=Protection%20of%20right%20to%20life.&text=(1)%20No%20person%20shall%20be,by%20the%20highest%20appellate%20court.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Uganda#:~:text=Abortion%20in%20Uganda%20is%20illegal,such%20as%20self%2Dinduced%20abortions.

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/human-rights-act/article-2-right-life#:~:text=Everyone’s%20right%20to%20life%20shall,penalty%20is%20provided%20by%20law.

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/13/weekinreview/on-abortion-its-the-bible-of-ambiguity.html

https://thewalrus.ca/what-does-the-bible-actually-say-about-abortion/

https://ivypanda.com/essays/ethics-and-abortion/

https://sexualrightsdatabase.org/countries/457/Uganda#:~:text=The%20legal%20age%20for%20sexual,conviction%20liable%20to%20life%20imprisonment.

https://time.com/3582434/6-abortion-myths/

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/theocracy-countries

https://www.ageofconsent.net/world/uganda

https://www.focusonthefamily.com/pro-life/six-scriptures-that-speak-up-for-those-who-cant-speak-for-themselves/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/islamethics/abortion_1.shtml

https://www.focusonthefamily.com/pro-life/scriptures-advocating-for-the-pre-born/

https://www.focusonthefamily.com/pro-life/what-does-the-bible-say-about-abortion/

https://nursinganswers.net/essays/an-ethical-perspective-on-abortion-nursing-essay.php

https://reproductiverights.org/new-report-exposes-impact-of-ugandas-abortion-law-through-personal-stories/

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.reproductiverights.org/sites/crr.civicactions.net/files/documents/Uganda-Abortion-Law-Experiences.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwih95KG9NX0AhUkBGMBHQ0mBccQFnoECBcQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0vqq-TsWSHd0uJ9HB3rwSA

Credits: Uganda Christian University(UCU) Case study, UCU student insights, Writer that keeps writing