SO MUCH has been reported and condemned in the public domain over the most horrible and inhuman act of murder that is frequently happening behind closed curtains in Honiara and elsewhere in the country.
The number of dead foetus discovered in different locations around Honiara City is rising year after year.
The issue is becoming a concern one that is beyond control, and made worse by an ease of access to drugs used to induce abortion, as revealed by a medical doctor in an interview.
The medical practitioner who requested anonymity said the issue is common in private medical practice where people seek advice for abortion.
The local doctor said married and single women seek advice from private medical practitioners more often in a week.
He said it is against medical oath to conduct abortion, but can only be done if it is medically indicated.
Abortion is governed by the Penal Code of 1963, Chapter 26 of the 1996 Revised Laws of the Solomon Islands, which makes the performance of abortion generally illegal.
Under the Code, any person who unlawfully uses any means with the intent to procure the miscarriage of a woman, whether pregnant or not, is subject to life imprisonment.
But what has been happening in front of our very own eyes is the discovery of innocent souls dumped in rivers, drains and shorelines, which continues to infringe this law without due diligence.
Year after year, a record number of discoveries were reported in different locations in Honiara and elsewhere in the country, which puts the issue at the forefront.
How can authorities address the issue?
Many execution of this illegal act happened behind closed doors and never came to light, this might be responsible for a magnitude of innocent souls irresponsibly murdered each year.
It’s timely that the laws of our Country put heavy punishment for those inhuman actions and bring perpetrators to face the full force of the law.
It’s high time that our health authorities, civil society groups and church groups step up their work.
And it’s high time that the national government start thinking outside of the box and implement mechanisms that could help reduce this illegal practice in our society.
Abortion has been responsible for the death of many innocent lives in today’s society, claimed a local physician who described abortion as a ‘silent killer,’ wiping out an indefinite population of infants, year after year.
It’s like a cancer that is thriving among a population of mainly young people with unplanned pregnancy.
In the first half of this year alone, notably two discoveries of dead foetus were made, which send waves of condemnation from civil society groups.
On Thursday 21 April, a fully grown foetus was found floating at the Tuvaruhu River while mid last month, a dead body of a baby was found at Kukum beachfront, both within the vicinity of Honiara City.
The foetus that was found at Tuvaruhu was reported to be a male infant, alleged to be an offspring of a female student at a local high school.
Innocent human lives thrown recklessly, and buried in shallow graves is a matter to be condemned in the strongest term, and calls for swift intervention.
In April 2015, a dead body of a male baby was discovered in the Henderson area, on a Sunday morning.
Also September last year, discoveries have brought to two the number of deaths in less than week- in just one month.
At the beginning of that month, a foetus believed to be seven to eight months old was found dead at Naha Heights, in east Honiara.
Later in the week, workers at the Ranadi rubbish dump discovered a body of a fully-formed baby dumped at the site.
On 20 May 2013, a man was out early to fetch bread for his family’s breakfast when he tumbled on the grave behind a home in the Kaibia area.
Luckily, he rescued a baby girl that was dumped in the freshly-dug shallow grave.
The medical doctor who spoke to this paper said there are number of reasons why people chose abortion.
Some of the common ones include unplanned pregnancy, pregnant at very young age, individuals facing family problems and prefer abortion to associated social problems, one involves students still on high school and want to terminate pregnancy.
Most of the people, as it would appear choose abortion because they feel they have no other choice, says a local physician.
Even couples do wise, for instance a lot of couples choose abortion because they have close aging in their children.
But the Penal Code only allows an abortion to be performed to save the life of a pregnant woman.
A reliable inside source has also revealed to the paper that the illegal trade of drugs used for abortion is still common in the country with a price tag of each tablet reaching as much as $100.
The inside source said average of two people purchase the product each day.
The source told this paper that few people purchase the product more than one time in less than two years.
The medical doctor spoken to said the availability of drugs to terminate pregnancy is available in local pharmacies, and is traded illegally among the public each day.
“Now, the availability of drugs is easy, people just go and buy it without doctor’s prescription.
“People also look up on the internet and perform the act,” the physician said.
A report on a case study on family planning conducted in Solomon Islands in 2013 states that in Solomon Islands, approximately one in nine women of the reproductive age who are married or in union want to avoid pregnancy but are not using any method of family planning.
It suggests that there would be an average of 2,075 fewer unintended pregnancies each year, and there would be an average of 50 percent fewer abortions each year.
The report also states that a significant proportion of pregnancies are unintended, with more than half of all births mistimed or unwanted in some settings.
It states that there is considerable demand for family planning in Solomon Islands, and almost 46 percent of women married or in union have a need for contraception.
This sums up well that even legally married people failed to use contraceptive methods which led them to seek advice from doctors for abortion.
Meanwhile, the medical doctor spoken to says there is no data or statistical records on abortion whether conducted legally or illegally that is available in the country due to no research conducted on the matter.
The doctor told Island Sun that there was only a small research conducted on the issue of abortion by the late Doctor Banabus Maesubua before he passed away on 2014.
“If only someone does a research and find out the statistics would be good,” the doctor told this paper.
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