IMO, June 19, 2009 (CISA) -The State of Imo in Nigeria marked a pro-life victory when the legislature rejected the Reproductive Rights Bill last week by a vote of 13 to one.
The national Nigerian newspaper This Day described the victory as a “victory of the superior Imo cultural values over the new global Western Cultural Revolution" and “yet another triumph of reason… a triumph of democracy and the popular will.”
The Reproductive Rights Bill that claimed to deal with women's reproductive health would have effectively legalized abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy if it was passed.
Large crowds ranging from school children, religious sisters, civil servants marched to the Imo State House of Assembly and protested the Bill last Monday morning.
The demonstrators overflowed outside the building, holding signs reading, "Children are our values, Reproductive right is abortion," and "Imo mothers love children."
However, advocates of the Bill had defended it by saying that it never mentioned abortion and was aimed solely at promoting the health of Imo women.
But, clauses in the Bill stated, "control of fertility, timing, number, and spacing of their children," and "choice of methods of fertility control and family planning," all of which have been consistently interpreted in countries where abortion is legal as giving women the right to both abortion and contraceptives.
The people of Imo also rejected the Bill because of its prominent sponsors the US based International Project Assistance Services (IPAS), a major abortion lobbying group that has been quietly promoting and selling handheld abortion devices and drugs for years.
Imo a state, whose rich heritage, culture and religious traditions welcomes life and respects the lives of unborn children has rejected several attempts to legalize abortion, with the most recent being in 2006.
This story can be found at http://www.cisanewsafrica.org/story.asp?ID=3974
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