PHOTO: Bishop Kortu Brown, Overseer of the Apostolic Pentecostal Church
By Augustine Octavius, augustineoctavius@gmail.com
As the debate over abortion in the Liberian society intensifies, the former President of the Liberia Council of Churches (LCC) is calling on Liberians and their lawmakers to carefully consider whether to seek to legalize abortion on demand for any reason, up to 14 weeks.
Last week, the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Health, Joseph Sowambee disclosed that the Legislature has been deliberating on whether or not to legalize abortion in Liberia.
Bishop Kortu Brown, who is also the Overseer of the Apostolic Pentecostal Church international, said that he agreed that Liberia should allow abortion for risks reasons and not just for any other reason at all.
Bishop Brown was speaking over the weekend at the end of a two-day retreat organized by the LICOSES Teacher’s College Training program in the New Water in the Desert Apostolic Pentecostal Church Campus in Brewerville, Montserrado County.
Bishop Brown argued that if there is a risk to a mother’s life and/or for rape, incest and disability, he believes that abortion is possible.
According to him, “this is already legal in Liberia”; but he however, cautioned against any law that would legalize abortion for more than 3 months for any reason at all other than for threats to a mother’s life, incest, rape or disability.
He maintained that a life from God is involved and he rejected abortion being committed for any reasons for a young baby almost four months old in the mother’s womb, contending that “that would give Liberia one of the most extreme abortion laws in Africa, even more extreme than most European countries”.
Bishop Brown, who is also the former President of the Inter Religious Council of Liberia, further argued that “according to research, by 14 weeks or almost 4 months, a baby has all of its major organs formed including a beating heart; it is able to feel pain, and so on.
“Therefore, abortion cannot be legalized on demand, for any reason, only because a person wants an abortion even if their lives are not threatened and they have not suffered incest, rape, or disability,” the former LCC President added.
The Apostolic Pentecostal Church Bishop contended that “studies have shown that in some countries of the world where abortion has been legalized, one in four children are aborted which is like losing a quarter of the country’s population just through legal abortion alone.
He continued: “It is difficult to articulate what a catastrophic impact that has had on those countries because there is no turning back once abortion is legalized, so once the floodgates are opened, thousands of children in Liberia will be legally killed.”
The immediate past president of Liberia Council of Churches said that performing abortion just over three months would be something to carefully study because most abortions take place within the first 14 weeks, so such new law would make most abortions legal.
If the rate came to European levels, “about 15,000 children could be lost by abortion each year in Liberia because the proposed law allows abortion for any reason at all, not merely for risks to the mother’s life, and not merely for rape, incest and/or disability”, arguing that “exceptional abortions are already legal in Liberia”.
Bishop Brown then called on Liberian lawmakers to engage a more moderate bill as they revise the Public Health Bill that would actually improve on the 1976 law instead of adopting laws that could have unfavorable impact on the population of the country in years to come.
“Every child has a right to life whether born or unborn”, citing the Bible scripture of Psalms Chapter 139 verses 13 thru 16 declares that, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb”.
According to Psalms 14, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”
Psalm 15 says “My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.”
Psalm 16: “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”