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Saturday, February 15, 2025

Abort Attempts To Legislate Abortion Rights In Liberia

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By Nathan N. Mulbah

Late last month, August 2023, members of the 54th the Liberian Legislature of the Republic of Liberia were requested to return to the Capitol building to carry out some legislative functions before the conduct of the much vaunted October 2023 Legislative and Presidential elections.

Among the different Bills to be considered during this emergency sitting include but not limited to the Bill entitled the Public Health Bill. That Bill contains the issue of legislating Abortion Rights in Liberia.

In the wake of the ongoing emergency legislative deliberations, members of the CitizenGO, a Catholic activist organization, rallied signatures to stop lawmakers in Liberia from legalizing abortion in the West African country.

In their petition to the Liberian Senate last month, CitizensGo expressed concern that legislating the right to have abortion in Liberia will lead to tens of thousands of lives being lost annually in the country.

According to the Catholic Pro-lifers organization, the Bill when pass into law, has the potential of introducing a very big change to legislation in Liberia and would directly lead to the death of thousands of innocent babies through abortion in Liberia.

The fast track passage of the propose Bill runs contrary to the modus-operandi of making legislation in Liberia.

For example, for a Bill to be passed in the Republic of Liberia, there should be public hearings and consultations with variety of experts on the subject matters and the legislators should have consultations with the electorates in their counties and Electoral Districts to have their views on the particular Bill put in vogue for passage into law.

Our investigation has established that this proposed Abortion Right Bill has not been given the due diligence required by law.

Under the current legislation of Liberia, abortion is legally permissible in exceptional circumstances that include when a mother’s life is at risk, when a pregnancy evolves as a result of rape, incest or felonious intercourse and disability of the fetus.

The Catholic CitizenGO organization, which is conglomeration of Catholics in Africa, is also expressing concern that the Public Health Bill when pass into law, will eventually scrap Liberia’s current abortion law and replace it with an extreme law that allows abortion, for any reason, on demand, up to when the baby in the womb is at 14 weeks gestation.

Putting figures to the amount of lives that will be lost as a result of the introduction of the proposed Public Health Bill, CitizenGo said, it has been estimated that this change from allowing abortion in exceptional cases to allowing abortion on demand would lead to the loss of the lives of 40,000 babies being lost to abortion in Liberia every single year.

What is even more troubling is the startling revelation by the CitizenGo that the Swedish government and other foreign NGOs have creating and funding organizations in Liberia to lobby for the legalization of abortion.

The Catholic organization is also alleging that unholy cash from the Swedish government in the tone of US$20,000 is being used to bribe each senator as an inducement and enticement to have them fast track the passage of the Bill.

The Catholic group has frowned on the disposition of foreign government interference in the democratic process of Liberia describing it as totally unacceptable and a form of neo-colonialism that should be rejected.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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