Editor, RE: “Why Rwanda expressed reservations to rights council proposal to join ICC” (The New Times, November 12). Perpetually talking about leaving but never doing so just erodes your credibility—people just yawn or their eyes cross in boredom when you threaten to do so for the umpteenth time. Africans should do it or hold their peace. As for abortions, yes; they are never safe for the fetus. But the life of the mother or her physical, mental or emotional well-being, are paramount in my book. Why, I ask, should men presume to be the judges on an issue that first and foremost concerns women? When men begin becoming pregnant—perhaps also after being raped, including by close relatives (incest) or when the person they became pregnant from refuses all responsibility for the consequences–then they will have a legitimate reason to want to have an equal say on this matter as women. Meantime, men who take extreme anti-abortion positions sound more like what the Baganda call “Atamukutte yagaamba mbu kwatila ddala onyweeze!” They have the luxury of taking unbending positions on an issue whose costs and heartache only women really know about first-hand. I do not support the idea of abortion on demand. But neither do I believe we should restrict it to such an extent we push our desperate sisters, daughters or nieces to seek dangerous means of terminating unwanted pregnancies. For mark my words, making it unlawful does not mean it won’t be done, merely that you may only be pushing distraught women into the arms of dangerous abortion providers. And that means that we, as a society, will be pushing our womenfolk into suicidal choices. Is that what we really want, under the guise of I don’t know what moral principles? We might just as well go back to our tradition of tying girls who become pregnant out of wedlock into sacs and throwing them into the Nyabarongo. Mwene Kalinda
