Priya Manickchand should qualify her statement

May 07, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – There is a Facebook page in the name of Priya Manickchand. That page contains a number of posts containing images which suggest that the page is either administered by or on behalf of the Honourable Minister of Education.
Yesterday, a post appeared in response to another post about the possibility of the US Supreme Court overturning the constitutional ban on abortion. The response was the effect “Not in Guyana. We will not reverse the gains we made in this area. Women have rights and they will be respected.”
It is not clear whether the Minister was speaking in her personal or professional capacity. But the use of ‘we’ opens to conjecture that the Minister was referencing a government position. Unless of course, the ‘we’ referred to women in which case she should not presume that her views represent that of all women or even the majority of women in Guyana.
It is hoped that she would indicate whether her position reflects that of the governments, the presumed position of women or her own personal views. It would be extremely premature for such a position to be taken by the government and especially since there is no decision yet from the US Supreme Court
Even if Roe v. Wade is overturned by the US Supreme Court, all this would do is allow the respective states to determine whether they would permit abortions, outlaw them or regulate them.
The impending decision of the US Supreme Court does not alter the calculus in Guyana where abortions are allowed up to certain stages of pregnancy and for specified reasons. The decision to legalise certain abortions in Guyana had nothing to do with Roe v. Wade which essentially prohibits states from banning most abortions.
Neither did Guyana’s decision to legalise abortions emanate from any decision of Guyana’s constitutional court. It was eventuated by the passage of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Bill in 1995. As such, it was due to legislation and not a ruling by the courts.
The overturning of Roe v. Wade will not have any implications for the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act (MTPA), unless of course someone finds a provision in our Constitution which defends the right to life from conception, and then moves to challenge the constitutionality of the MTPA.
There appears nothing in Guyana’s Constitution which can be used to challenge the legislation. As such, it is hard to imagine why a report about the possibility of Roe v. Wade being overturned should trigger a reaction from the Minister that such a development will not happen here in Guyana.
Roe v. Wade is likely to be overturned. In the draft opinion which was leaked to the public, the precedent was criticised on three grounds. The first was that there is no mention in the Constitution of a right to an abortion nor does the US Constitution implicitly protect such a right.
Second, while Courts tends to be predisposed towards precedents (previous decided decisions), the opinion which was leaked argued that Roe vs. Wade was egregiously wrong from the inception and its reasoning was exceptionally weak. Third, it was said that it had disastrous consequences, the latter referring no doubt to the divisions it triggered in society.
The opinion said, “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives. The permissibility of abortion, and the limitations, upon it are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: y citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting.”
What the overturning of Roe v. Wade will do is to revive and energise the pro-life movement in Guyana. The government can come under intense pressure to rescind the 1995 MTPA.
The possibility, however, is remote that the government can be forced to reexamine the MTPA. The PPP/C is set in its ways. It tends to treat its legislation as unalterable regardless of the ensuing legal or social developments. It is therefore highly unlikely that the PPP/C would allow parliament to revisit, even after 27 years, the MTPA.
If, however, by some extra ordinary means the matter does meet the National Assembly, this would be a question which will have to be decided by a conscience vote, just as the MTPA was decided by a conscience vote which turned out generally to be a partisan vote.
It is against this background that moral questions are the subject of conscience votes, that it was ill-advised for a Minister to speak about “we” without qualifying whether that we means the government or women or simply her personal opinion.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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