Dear Editor,

AKOLA Thompson’s almost full-page column in the Guyana Chronicle on 27 April, 2016, titled “Abortion and the ability to choose” is entirely wrong on what the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act 1995 says and allows. It is also wrong, as far as I am aware, though the information comes from what I have been told by senior doctors in the public service and not from my personal knowledge, on the practice that prevails at the larger public hospitals in Guyana in connection with abortions. Columnists have a deep and abiding duty and responsibility, especially when they are given such prominent column space, to ensure that their articles are factually correct. This duty is magnified when they write on an important issue such as the law relating to abortions in Guyana because of the consequences which may result if people are not aware of the true situation.

Women who read the column and are not familiar with what the law actually says or what happens at public hospitals where abortions are concerned could put themselves in danger if they form the belief, perpetuated by the column, that they cannot get an abortion at a public hospital.

If such women cannot afford to go to a private hospital and do not believe they can go to a public hospital on the basis of what they read in Ms Thompson’s column, they may very well then go to someone who is not qualified to do abortions to get one. This could result simply from an incorrect conclusion drawn from the opinion of a columnist who never took the preliminary step of finding out what the law says and what actually happens before writing.

Yours faithfully,
Kamal Ramkarran