Abortion, Ehanire, And The Law

In Nigeria, abortion is illegal, according to Sonnie Ekwowusi.
The final year of the Buhari administration has been marred by major scandals. In the midst of Nigeria’s worsening living conditions, exacerbated by suffocating intense heat, collapsed electricity supply, acute scarcity of aviation and automobile fuel, scarcity of gas and kerosene, sky-rocking inflation, free-fall of the Naira, collapsed primary health system, and genteel poverty, President Buhari jets out to London for medical tourism, as he has done for the past seven years. His wife, Aisha Buhari, is a frequent visitor to Dubai. She is not subjected to the hardships that Nigerians are subjected to. Similarly, while many sick Nigerians die in Nigeria due to a lack of access to primary health care, Mr. President travels to London to be treated by the best doctors in the world. While he relaxes in London, his media team in Aso Villa issues a statement on his behalf, “apologizing” to Nigerians for the plethora of problems they face. Mr. President, unfortunately, has no solution to the deteriorating living conditions. Nigerians were shown a massive Rice Pyramid in Abuja last December to give the false impression that rice is plentiful in Nigeria and that Nigerians can feed themselves. However, Nigeria is the 103rd hungriest country in the world, out of 119 countries, according to the Global Hunger Index (GHI). Mr. President has no one to answer to. He is oblivious to the needs of the people. In the last seven years, he has failed to construct even one good hospital in Nigeria where he and other powerful Nigerians could seek medical treatment rather than wasting foreign currency on medical tourism.

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Buhari’s ministers, like Mr. President, are free to do whatever they want. They, too, have no one to answer to. Some of them believe they are exempt from the rule of law. For example, under the guise of reducing Nigeria’s population, the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire (Oredo Local Council, Edo State), has recently launched a comprehensive abortion, infanticide, and contraception national policies and programs in Nigeria, in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), aimed at killing Nigerian babies and children. The World Health Organization (WHO), which is heavily funding and overseeing the project, boasts that it will dismantle all legal, religious, cultural, and philosophical principles in Nigeria in order to allow for the abortion killing of Nigerian babies. To this end, the WHO has spent billions of dollars to encourage Nigerian women and girls to seek abortion, also known as “family planning (FP) services,” “Family Planning 2030,” or “sexual reproductive health.” Because the word “abortion” is offensive in the Nigerian socio-cultural and religious context, as well as the fact that abortion is illegal in Nigeria, the WHO, Minister Ehanire, and the Federal Ministry of Health, Abuja, Nigeria, deceptively use euphemisms and dubious phrases like “family planning (FP) services” or “Family Planning 2030” or “sexual reproductive health” to promote abortion and infanticide, hoping that the undiscerning public will not realize they are doing so.

Senator Daisy Ehanire-Danjuma (Edo-South Council) sponsored an Abortion Bill in the National Assembly in 2006, which was dubbed the National Institute of Reproductive Health bill. On the 13th of February 2006, the Senate held a public hearing on the bill. The bill was met with fierce opposition, the most vocal of which came from a group of mothers and women who stormed the Senate in two buses early on the fateful day. I was one of the lawyers who argued in the National Assembly against the Bill on behalf of about 15 Nigerian NGOs and organizations. Senator Danjuma argued in her defense that the bill was not an abortion bill because the term “abortion” was not specifically mentioned. In response, we argued that, while the word “abortion” was not explicitly mentioned in the bill, the concepts of reproductive health and adolescent sexual reproductive health mentioned in the bill are all well-known euphemisms or soft languages for promoting abortion, contraceptives among schoolchildren, and teaching Nigerian children dating, masturbation, breast enlargement, “safe sex” or “condom-sex.” Senator Danjuma chose to withdraw the bill in the face of opposition so that it could be amended. We, on the other hand, were against the amendment. The Senate Health Committee held a three-day retreat at the Presidential Hotel in Port Harcourt from Thursday, April 27 to Sunday, April 30, 2006, for a select group of 18 people to reconsider the Bill. The Abortion Bill was finally dismissed due to its lack of merit and incompatibility with public morality and public interest after a second hearing. So don’t be fooled. Abortion is also known as “sexual reproductive health.” Similar arguments can be made for “family planning (FP) services,” “Family Planning 2030,” “fertility regulation,” “access to appropriate health care services,” “interruption of unwanted pregnancies,” “safe motherhood,” “post-abortion care,” and so on.

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Minister Ehanire is now conspiring with the WHO to abort Nigerian women and schoolgirls in order to reduce the Nigerian population, using the euphemisms “sexual reproductive health,” “family planning (FP) services,” and “Family Planning 2030.” In Nigeria, the WHO claims that abortion is a human right (Human right my foot). As I write this, I have documents from the World Health Organization (WHO) detailing the methods used to kill Nigerian babies in front of me. To begin with, the World Health Organization (WHO) has flooded Nigeria with a variety of surgical abortion instruments. The Vacuum Aspiration is one of these instruments for aborting 14-week pregnancies. Dilation and evacuation (D & E) by generalist and specialist medical practitioners, traditional and complementary medical practitioners, midwives, and associative and advanced clinicians is recommended by the WHO as a complement to vacuum aspiration.

Why is the Minister of Health collaborating with the WHO to break Nigerian law? Abortion is illegal in Nigeria under the combined effect of sections 228, 229, 230, and 328 of the Criminal Code (and their equivalent provisions in the Penal Code). In fact, Section 230 of the Criminal Code expressly states that anyone who supplies any drug, substance, contraceptive, or instrument to a girl or woman with the intent of unlawfully procuring abortion or infanticide on the girl or woman commits a felony and is sentenced to three years in prison if convicted. In addition, the right to life is guaranteed by Section 33 of the 1999 Constitution. It states that no one may be put to death unless he or she is serving a sentence from a court for a criminal offense for which he or she has been found guilty in Nigeria. The Nigerian social order is founded, among other things, on the sanctity of the human person, according to Section 17 of the 1999 Constitution. Similarly, section 38 of the constitution protects the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, stating that every Nigerian has the right to propagate his or her religion or belief through worship, teaching, practice, and observance.