This effectively means that any woman or girl lucky enough to survive a backstreet (which they usually are) abortion ordeal, and who is subsequently found out by the authorities, risks getting hauled off to court where society will condemn her further for breach of what many legal intellectuals increasingly view as a moral wrong (an offence in the same league as say adultery or premarital sex, for those countries with secular legal regimes, which nevertheless still punish these).

The only exception to this harsh rule in Kenya are cases where it can be proved medically that the woman’s life is at risk, or in cases of incest (but these latter exceptions are also being chipped at with the church’s relentless and sometimes blind onslaught against women’s bodies).

The reasons for abortion in Kenya are varied, but by and large, girls and young women in unstable relationships are the worst affected. Finding themselves literally left holding the baby by fathers who promptly flee as soon as they hear the big announcement (a time honoured Kenyan tradition, that is legally facilitated by our very own Children’s Act – Kenyan fathers are basically not bound by law to provide for their children sired outside of marriage), they are thus faced with the profound decision of whether or not to terminate their unplanned and likely unmanageable pregnancy.

Life it is said is good, and new life even better, but what is this life that burdens only poor disempowered women with its sustenance? Is this a reasonable demand on Kenyan women?

Many poor women walk down the abortion route, not because they are mindless creatures bent on destroying their young, but because they know they have a bleak future and an even bleaker future to offer any offspring, particularly without the crucial support of the fathers - our reality is that men, not women, wield real economic power in the country. Women work twice as hard, but they always reap half the benefits.

It is not cowardly for a woman to go against her strong maternal instinct, as the church loves to preach. It might not demonstrate strength either, however, pain and anguish become part of the woman's life. The emotional aspect of abortion has escaped the (mostly male) ‘pro-lifists’ of the cloth and the state. It is time it was factored in. We must have humane debates on human issues.

Sex education is a taboo subject in this country of over thirty million; religious bodies and churches were at the forefront of the fight against the sex education project that the government had planned to launch in public schools in the late nineties to early this decade. The argument made by these conservatives was that sex education is a matter for the mother and her daughter, for the father and his son. The reality is that many parents are just too busy, too shy or too unbothered about imparting sexual knowledge on their children. The children, more so when in their teens, run off to learn about sex the only other true way they see, experiments (with what they watch on graphic modern television freshly imprinted in their minds).

In some churches, like the Catholic Church, even simple decisive things like contraception, which would preempt the need for abortion, are taboo. This stance is plainly irresponsible, and in its wake comes the ugliness of not just unwanted pregnancies but also sexually transmitted infections and with these a large and prevetable cost to the national purse.

In the fallout it is these unfortunate youngsters, failed by their church, school, parents, state, and other players, that society as a whole turns to punish in our courts. Worse, only girls and young women are punished over these ‘crimes’, never mind that several times they do not have the economic clout to meet the backstreet procedures. The men almost always provide the money, but the abortion debt and the label of ‘murderer’ is apportioned 100 percent to the traumatized girl who must, in addition to the emotional and physical scars of the abortions, deal with the societal censure of (usually) premarital sexual liaisons. Some churches readily excommunicate such persons, giving scant attention to the Christian core teachings on love or forgiveness.

With such a scenario as is playing out in Kenya, the woman or girl has only two options

1. if undergoing the procedure (in the unhygienic conditions that these are done), be not found out;
2. die during the procedure, death would be merciful in the circumstances, and many young women do lose their lives this way in the labs of backstreet quacks who use all manner of gadgets such as coat hangers, scissors, expired malarial tablets, clothes bleaching liquids among other things, whilst politicians, activists, lawyers, doctors, preachers of hell and damnation continue to talk shop, adopt positions and craft strategy papers. Even the government itself has shown only scant concern over the loss of life in this way.

Which brings us to face the elephant in the room. Why make such a fuss over the unborn if the living do not matter?

The church continues to preach the gospel of illegalized abortion and will not be drawn into any rational talk, even by moderates who only call for decriminalization for the procedure (as opposed to fully legalizing it). Society acquiesces and the state sits on the fence. The church would sooner condemn its young flock (who modern society has failed) to hopelessness, prison and death rather than shower the very love of Christ that is supposedly dedicated to for the wretched.

The police arrest weak traumatized girls and bring them back to the station for more trauma and charges, the prosecutors articulate the state’s oppressive position against the helpless abandoned ostracized women, and magistrates sitting in their courts see it fit to conduct such cases and sentence such already suffering persons to decrepit prisons where they will get minimal medical care, little counseling and the real risk of further sexual abuse and repeated unwanted pregnancies. Thus is the cycle continued, but none of the players is even remotely interested in asking whose interests at all would are served with such "crimes" still remaining in our books and being sanctioned, nor concerned with the plight of the girls who suffer the horrors of the consequences of this antipathy.

And so, the young girls and women lose their lives, their dreams, their promise, and carry the burdens of a society that has turned logic on its head and for what?! So that we are not seen as ‘loose’ and ‘westernized’? This is just too heavy a price to pay for a simple image!

The abortion issue in Kenya is a very basic one. It's about the right to live a dignified healthy life.

Everyone has a hand in the moral culpability of continuing abortion in Kenyan society. We must stop sacrificing young voiceless lambs to assuage our moral guilt. If those going on anti-abortion crusades on streets would spend even half their energies on removing the causes of abortion, the problem would probably cease to exist.

The woman’s womb should not be a field for the political games of powerful men. We women (I speak as a woman, a lawyer, a Roman Catholic and a patriotic Kenyan) carry the wombs, and we have the right to demand that the politics about them cease! We are dying. We are dying and people must stop talking and start doing!

Perhaps it's time people started talking about the 'hidden’ causes and effects of these abortions we so hate. To cure a disease, you don’t treat the symptoms, and the church, the most vocal opponent of abortion, must start offering real alternatives.

Abortion will not go away if all we do is preach and legislate against it. We cannot pass silly laws, act indecisively and run away from the issues (linked to abortion) that affect women and expect miracles in return. We must stop failing girls and women in our society, and we must vacate the moral high ground and get down to work.

Giving real alternatives, not just preaching on streets, pulpits and parliaments, is moral courage itself  and the best weapon against the abortion we so profess to loathe!