Dear Editor,
Congratulations to everyone who contributed to and signed the powerful letter calling for the full implementation of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act (Stabroek News, March 1).
Their call correctly documents the failure of implementation and makes several specific, actionable demands.
Let’s put failure aside and see what lessons we can extract from the last 18 years and then apply them to making things better — quickly.
A useful target would be to aim to have the act in full operation in two years, by 2015 − the 20th anniversary of the act and the year of accounting for the Millennium Development Goals.
But none of this will happen because of a single eloquent and plaintive letter. Our authorities are very skilled at ignoring such appeals.
A single platform of leverage for monitoring implementation was built into the law, namely, the Advisory Board. This was designed as a civilian oversight body that would receive data compiled from reports of terminations and so be able from one quarter to the next, to assess the state of implementation and make recommendations. It was a mechanism of transparency and public accountability.
Strengthening and energizing this body would provide the institutional fulcrum for giving life to the provisions of the law and addressing the excellent recommendations in the letter you published.
I just hope that one or two of the signatories to that beautiful letter would be willing to join that body. Implementation is hard work and requires persistent, critical effort.
Yours faithfully,
Fred Nunes
