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Courtesy of the Reverend Patricia Sheerattan-Bisnauth<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe death of a mother-of-six from a botched abortion at an unlicensed clinic 10 years ago is one Reverend Patricia Sheerattan-Bisnauth will never forget.<\/p>\n It had been almost two decades since Guyana passed ground-breaking abortion reform legislation, yet no public hospitals offered terminations and doctors were not licensed to carry them out.<\/p>\n \u201cWomen were still dying of abortions gone wrong,\u201d Patricia tells the BBC. <\/p>\n \u201cThey were using home remedies, bush medicine, unlicensed doctors. The law may have been passed but it took many years for it to be implemented. For me, it was an urgent cause.\u201d<\/p>\n Today, Guyana remains one of few countries in the Caribbean to allow terminations upon request. <\/p>\n Most are beholden to colonial-era laws \u2013 backed by religious leaders – outlawing them in all but the most extreme circumstances.<\/p>\n Despite this, clandestine abortions are prevalent.<\/p>\n As a minister in the Christian Church, Patricia may seem an unlikely campaigner for legal reform.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are all talking about life, and we are for life. There are too many abortions; we want to address the issues that create them. Decriminalising abortion will bring it out of the darkness and lead to a reduction because people are educated and don\u2019t have repeat ones,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n Patricia is working alongside regional women\u2019s health charity Aspire to change the law in two Caribbean nations. <\/p>\n Aspire is spearheading legal action in Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda to overturn the 19th-Century Offences Against the Person Act, which stipulates a 10-year prison sentence for a woman who ends a pregnancy. The only exception is when her life is at risk.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When Brianna (not her real name) fell pregnant at 19 in Dominica, she was faced with a difficult choice. A college student with limited funds, she knew she was neither financially nor emotionally ready to become a parent.<\/p>\n Seven years on, the memory of the secret termination she underwent remains acutely painful.<\/p>\n Brianna and her partner had been taking precautions. <\/p>\n \u201cWe used contraception most of the time and I was on birth control too. We were both really young and bringing up a child wasn\u2019t something we could have done then,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n Brianna decided ending the pregnancy was her only option.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a frightening situation. I had no idea where to go and I didn\u2019t want to get into trouble by just walking in somewhere and asking,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n Eventually she found a private doctor willing to carry out the procedure, but at more than $600 (\u00a3465) \u2013 about an average month\u2019s salary in Dominica \u2013 the cost was steep. <\/p>\n A nurse took pity on her and loaned her the money.<\/p>\n \u201cI was really scared. I wasn\u2019t well versed on how it would work or what would happen to me. I had to lie to get the time off work. And at the doctor\u2019s, they hid me in a room by myself.<\/p>\n \u201cI felt really isolated, like I was doing something wrong,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Brianna\u2019s story is far from unique.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A study carried out by Aspire indicates that in Antigua, almost three in four women will have a termination by their mid-40s – practically all of them carried out clandestinely.<\/p>\n Aspire\u2019s founder Fred Nunes \u2013 who played a key role in changing the law in Guyana in the 1990s \u2013 says he is fighting to \u201celiminate unsafe abortions\u201d.<\/p>\n He argues that current laws are unconstitutional, an affront to women\u2019s bodily autonomy, and disproportionately affect the poor.<\/p>\n \u201cThe women who have the power to change the law have no need to, because they can walk into a doctor\u2019s office and have a safe abortion,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n \u201cThe women who have a need to change the law are the poor, the young and the vulnerable. That is why we have to intervene, to end the silence and provoke social justice.\u201d<\/p>\n Prosecutions for covert abortions in the Caribbean are rare, but not unheard of. Aspire cites a handful of cases where women, and the healthcare provider helping them, have been charged in the last decade. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n In Dominica, a young woman\u2019s death in May 2023 was blamed on a self-administered termination after police found a foetus buried at her home.<\/p>\n Still, campaigners know they will have a battle on their hands. <\/p>\n The Christian Church plays a key role in Caribbean society and religious leaders have spoken out vehemently against the matter, which is due to come before Antigua\u2019s High Court in September.<\/p>\n The Antigua and Barbuda Evangelical Alliance has condemned what it calls a \u201cdeliberate erosion of our moral code\u2026 under the cloak of advancing human rights\u201d.<\/p>\n Spokesman Pastor Fitzgerald Semper told the BBC: \u201cWe\u2019re directly opposed to any changes in the law. As a church, we believe life is sacred and only God should determine when life should end.<\/p>\n \u201cThe current law says that if the mother\u2019s life is endangered, then abortion is permitted, and we stand in agreement with that. There should be nothing added or taken away from the legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n With the church wielding such power, abortion is a delicate area to navigate politically and many Caribbean governments have been reluctant to broach the issue. In Antigua, the government has sidestepped the debate by pledging to leave the matter in the hands of the courts.<\/p>\n \u201cPoliticians are scared of the church,\u201d Mr Nunes says. <\/p>\n \u201cIn the last few decades in the Caribbean, membership has declined in mainline established churches and risen in evangelical, right-wing dogmatic churches \u2013 and those are extremely hostile to women\u2019s rights. <\/p>\n They\u2019ve made it almost impossible to approach improving the law.\u201d<\/p>\n Alexandrina Wong, of Antigua-based campaign group Women Against Rape, wants to see the \u201carchaic\u201d legislation removed, while retaining some restrictions such as term limits.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve seen women who\u2019ve become pregnant after being raped and their mental state has been affected considerably. They must not be denied the right to choose,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n Brianna thinks better sex education in schools would alleviate the prevalence of abortion.<\/p>\n Aspire\u2019s study also indicates very low rates of contraception in the region; 80% of pregnancies are said to be unplanned.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of teenage pregnancies are because youth are just not educated about sex,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Stigma surrounding abortion means Brianna has kept her own termination largely to herself.<\/p>\n \u201cEven though many people know someone who did it, people still get shunned. It\u2019s a very religious community and people think it\u2019s taking a life,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cBut to expect a woman to go ahead with a pregnancy when she\u2019s not capable of taking care of a child physically, financially or emotionally is unfair on her and the child. I feel that\u2019s worse than an abortion.<\/p>\n \u201cUnless someone has been in that situation, they can\u2019t understand the psychological warfare it can cause.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/bbcx\/grey-placeholder.png\")
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