The Foundation for African Heritage (FACH), a coalition of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) based in Lagos has described as unconscionable, inhuman and scandalous the suggestion by the United Nations Population Funds (UNFPA) and some foreign NGOs that the rescued pregnant Chibok girls should be sent to the abortion clinics to have their babies aborted or that abortion be legalized in Nigeria, so that the pregnant Chibok girls can abort their babies.
A Non-Governmental Association, Project Alert on Violence Against Women, Monday, stated that the pregnant women rescued from the camps of terrorists in the Sabisa forest in Borno state should be allowed to decide for themselves whether or not to abort the pregnancy.
This is just as it has kicked against earlier call by an NGO; Foundation for African Heritage, that the girls should not be subjected to a life threatening abortion process, emphasizing that the decision should be the exclusive reserve of the girls.
Briefing journalists yesterday on the release of the girls, the Executive Director of Project Alert, Josephine Effah-Chukwuma , pointed out that donation by public, private or NGO to the girls at their rehabilitation home did not give them the right to decide what was in the best interest of the girls ,whom she said were subjected to months of unimaginable physical, sexual and psychological terror.
The law on abortion in Nigeria definitely does not hold water in this case. So also should religious sentiments not hold sway. For once as a people let’s be real and not hypocritical. For as many of the girls who want to keep the pregnancy should be supported to do so; and for as many who want to abort it, should be supported to do so. This is not time or occasion for politics of any kind.
