The popular Kenyan group Sauti Sol once released a song titled Nerea, one of those times I felt like they had sat down to think of lyrics. In the song a man is appealing to Nerea not to terminate ‘his’ pregnancy. I love the song’s lyrics; they’re powerful, the kind that could make a woman have a change of mind concerning the decision to have an abortion. However, each time I listen to those words I feel like some truth was omitted from that song. What truth am I talking about? This world has Obamas and Osamas, good and bad, kind and ruthless, rapists and murderers. All of them born of women. This may be a bit mean (and probably goes against our natural optimism around unborn children) but I feel that while pleading with Nerea not to have an abortion that could cost the life of a future president, she should also be told that it is not always a potential president that is terminated as the unborn child could be a gang leader too.

I saw a thread on twitter recently by the BBC regarding a video that had circulated on Whatsapp of men dressed in army fatigues walking two women and two children to a deserted place. On reaching there, all four were blindfolded and shot to death (BBC has established the incident happened in Cameroon and was carried out by government soldiers). These men did not blink as they shot two women and two children, one strapped on its mother’s back. How cruel and heartless can a human being be! Look at all the heinous acts perpetrated by humans on fellow humans, actions that one animal could never do to a fellow animal such we do on our own. It is a big lie to say that every pregnancy a woman carries would bring forth an angel; we should recognise the assumption that there are times women will give birth to children that will harm them or the world and just the same way we can’t be sure they’ll go on to become presidents, we can’t be sure they won’t go on be terrible human beings.

After five births my mother decided to go for tubal ligation because she realized that her and my dad would be unable to look after more than five children. When she eventually broke this news to her mum, my grandma, she was distraught. See, my mother is an only child and her parents hoped she would give birth to many children to make up for the siblings she never had. My grandmother shed tears and told her daughter, ‘Grace you should never have done that. You were supposed to give birth to teachers, doctors and engineers. Maybe some could have ended up being thieves and prostitutes but at least you would have been able to do for the world what I your mother, failed to do.’ That part of thieves and prostitutes is what lacked in Sauti Sol’s Nerea song. Somebody please tell them to go back to the studio and be honest about the fact not every child born will be a star. 

editorial@newtimes.co.rw