Doctor Slams Abortion, Says Killing Babies is Causing Low Birth Rates
A Jamaican doctor and pro-life advocate has strongly criticized the widespread availability of abortion in the Caribbean nation, declaring it “way too easy” and a travesty that is fueling the nation’s low birth rates at a time when officials are urging more families to have children.
Dr. Daniel Thomas, president of the Love March Movement, said Jamaica must confront both the practice of abortion and shifting attitudes toward pregnancy, marriage and family if it hopes to reverse declining fertility rates.
“Definitely, abortion is way too easy in this country and it’s a crime. Everybody knows it is happening, but people don’t want to do anything about it,” Thomas told The Star.
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His comments come as Health Minister Dr. Christopher Tufton has again raised alarms about falling birth numbers and called on Jamaicans to have more children.
Thomas argued that mere appeals to reproduce will not solve the problem.
“There is an underbelly of a desire for independence from children. Part of that is just not having children at all,” he said.
Thomas estimated that Jamaica records about 35,000 live births each year while the abortion rate stands at around 15,000. His organization has worked to support women facing crisis pregnancies and has so far helped persuade women to continue 47 pregnancies by offering practical and emotional help to them and their babies.
“What we are trying to say is that we will come alongside women and offer them the support that they need,” Thomas said.
He noted that a recent poll found 75 percent of Jamaicans want the law keeping abortion illegal to remain unchanged. Yet many still seek abortions or abortion pills when faced with unplanned pregnancies.
“When push comes to shove and the woman is under the weight of that emotional moment, when she is in a crisis pregnancy, an unplanned pregnancy, that intellectual position probably gives way to what is seen as the easier way out,” he said.
Thomas also blamed decades of family-planning campaigns that began in the 1970s for changing how Jamaicans view children.
“That was the most successful social engineering campaign that has ever happened in this country,” he said. “The messaging behind it was that children are not a blessing, but they are an economic burden. … It was a mistake.”
To reverse the decline, Thomas called for bold incentives for married families having a third or fourth child, including significant tax relief and free schooling.
“Once you can demonstrate that you are married in a family, the third or fourth child should be able to give them significant tax breaks, like half of their income tax, free schooling, whatever it is,” he said. “We have to become dramatic in that and send the message that children are a blessing.”
He further urged a national network of support through health centers that would provide financial aid, employment help, emotional counseling, parenting mentorship and involvement of fathers and extended family so women feel able to choose life.
“If we just tell them have children and we do not build the structure within which a child is formed into a productive citizen, we would have done ourselves a serious injustice,” Thomas said. “We need children for our country and if we don’t do that, we are gonna have a serious socioeconomic shift that we are heading towards. We won’t have enough people to be in the workforce in a number of years and so we might end up have to push the age of retirement to 75.”
