wfn.org | NEW ABORTION LAW

[Audrey Whitefield <a.whitefield@quest.org.uk>]

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Feb. 24, 1997
ANGLICAN COMMUNION NEWS SERVICE
Canon Jim Rosenthal, Director of Communications  
Anglican Communion Office
London, England

[97.2.3.3]

SOUTH AFRICA: OPPOSITION TO NEW ABORTION LAW

(Noel Bruyns, ENI)  More than 80 per cent of South Africa's medical
doctors
are refusing to perform abortions, following the legalisation of
abortion
at the beginning of this month.

The doctors are refusing on religious and ethical grounds to implement
the
liberal abortion legislation approved by President Nelson Mandela's
African
National Congress-led Government of National Unity, according to a
survey
undertaken by Doctors for Life, an organisation based in Johannesburg.

Parliament voted in the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act, although
several surveys taken before the Act was passed showed that most South
Africans were, mainly for religious reasons, opposed to the
liberalisation
of abortion.

Doctors for Life  announced  last week that its survey, taken since the
enactment of the abortion legislation, showed that 82 per cent of
doctors
were unwilling to perform abortions.

Doctors for Life said that more than 700 doctors, specialists and
professors of medicine had declined to take part in abortions. Many
nurses
had also refused. Of about 1000 nurses at the Pretoria Academic
Hospital,
only 10 were willing to perform abortions, Doctors for Life said.

The South African Press Association (SAPA) news agency reported:"Nearly
all
doctors and nurses concerned with ending pregnancies at hospitals in the
Eastern Cape Province cities of Port Elizabeth and Unitenhage have
refused
to perform abortions."

Also, more than 50 per cent of the medical staff in the province of
Kwazulu-Natal were blocking abortion procedures for ethical, moral and
religious reasons, SAPA reported.

The controversial abortion legislation allows abortion on demand up to
the
12th week of pregnancy, and up to the 20th week under special
circumstances. Minors are permitted to have abortions without parental
permission.