Letters to the editor
Justifying abortion
Unhealthy power of churches
D+C/E+Z 10/2007, p. 368
Nico Sebastian Schützhofer’s views in support of abortion go against human conscience. Abortion is a moral issue and the use of terms like “terminating a pregnancy” serves to obscure the truth. Human life does not begin at birth but nine months prior to that. The act of abortion then kills a person within the first nine months of his/her life. The article advances a number of situations that justify abortion: poverty, a negligent father, rape, a deformed fetus or the endangered health of the mother. None of these points can justify the heinous act of killing an innocent human being. It is true that we should try to alleviate all human pain and suffering. But if we go to the extent of sacrificing human life, then we are going too far. The article tells us that six women have died in Nicaragua of “complications” since the abortion law was enacted in November 2006. But how many baby’s lives have been saved in the same period? Abortion operates on the immoral principal of “the end justifies the means”. One doesn’t have to be religious to see that this is wrong.
Sekitto Claver, Kyambogo, Uganda
Reply from Nico Sebastian Schützhofer:
As Sekitto Claver rightly points out, the objective must be to avoid human suffering. However, Nicaragua’s total ban on abortion fundamentally goes against the grain of this requirement. If a pregnant woman dies, then the foetus usually dies too. In such cases, a total ban therefore endangers the life of the pregnant woman, but cannot safeguard the life of the foetus. The case is similar when it comes to serious deformations, which make survival outside of the womb unlikely – for example, if vital organs have not developed properly. It is simply not moral for a pregnant woman to be forced by law to bear a child that will die shortly after birth.
Anyone claiming to represent a moral stand in the abortion debate should not turn a blind eye to these realities. Special legal provisions to cover medical cases of this kind are based on ethical principles, the application of which extends beyond cultural boundaries, in the same way that human rights do. For that reason, internationally, most legislating bodies have passed regulations that go beyond this minimal consensus.
In Nicaragua too, a law was in force for over 100 years, permitting “therapeutic” abortion in such narrowly defined cases. However, an emotive campaign based on false generalisation led to the repeal of this law. To this day, it has not been possible to clarify these matters in an urgently needed, comprehensive debate. Instead, the total ban on abortion was re-affirmed by the Nicaraguan Parliament in November. Only the representatives of the Sandinista renewal movement (MRS) voted against it.
Misplaced confidence in aid
Greater independence
D+C/E+Z 11/2007, p. 405
The article argues that in order for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to be achieved, “more money” will be needed. Such assumptions are mistaken. The premise appears to be the ideas that a lack of aid has somehow produced or at least exacerbated Africa’s situation and that aid and growth are linked. This confidence is misplaced.
Africa has received around a trillion dollars in aid in the past 50 years, but much of it remains dirt poor. Nonetheless, the article’s implication is that “the West” has “failed” Africa through miserly aid and that more aid can redress Africa’s current state. The assumption is that there is no African money to pay for education, for instance, so funds must be sourced externally, in the form of aid. This is, in a great many African countries, simply incorrect.
What really stands in the way of progress towards the MDGs is misallocation of funds, lack of prioritisation, deep-rooted corruption and waste. Consider Nigeria. That country’s recently established anti-corruption commission believes that between independence in 1960 and the end of 1997, a total of £ 220 billion was skimmed off or “misused” by Nigeria’s elites, equivalent to 300 years of British aid and worth six times more than the USA’s Marshall Plan for post-war Europe. The African Union recently estimated that corruption costs African countries about $148 billion each year, the equivalent of 25% of Africa’s official GNP. According to Transparency International and Kenya’s National Commission on Human Rights, the Kenyan government spent more than $12 million on new luxury cars between January 2003 and September 2004. That money could have been used to send 25,000 children to school for eight years.
In large parts of Africa, governance is performed through the exercise of personalised exchange, clientelism and rent-seeking. The idea that elites might channel resources towards development is, in the main, unrealistic. Investment in infrastructure and policies to promote long-term national development and to achieve the MDGs is not on the real agenda of many African governments.
Obviously, in some African states aid can make a difference. Humanitarian aid obviously should continue, and so should solidarity with Africa’s poor (but not elites!). This needs careful study, is full of caveats, and is complicated and political. What the donor countries need to be doing is engaging in serious debate with African leaders. Simply sending “more money” will hardly achieve anything.
Professor Ian Taylor,
School of International Relations, University of St. Andrews,
United Kingdom
The editor reserves the right to shorten readers’ letters.
D+C, 2008/01, Debate
