Date: 2018-02-13

A non-governmental organisation (NGO), Women who Care, under the aegis of Children Evangelism Ministry, has staged an anti-abortion rally in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital.

During the rally, speakers called abortion evil, urging the Federal Government not to tinker with the idea of legalising it.

Programmes Coordinator, Women who Care Diana Umoru said, "We are using this anti-abortion campaign to create awareness and bring radical change in the society. Many people are not aware about abortion and scores of people have been ignorantly committing abortion.

"It ranges from the married to students as well as young people. We have been dealing with the issue going from school to school. Today we are staging a rally starting from Kwara State to create an awareness, letting people know that we have created an anti-abortion programme.

"Abortion is killing many people. We call it the end-time holocaust. We say no to abortion. That is why we have as our slogan 'Choose life, don't kill the child'. Abortion is not legalised in Nigeria.

"Many young girls who don't have the money resort to visiting quack doctors. Because of its non-legalisation we cannot give the actual statistics of the number of abortion cases in Nigeria. We know the Planned Parenthood Federation has been advocating safe abortion. We are against it as it is a no-no situation as people cannot afford it.

"Abortion should not be legalised in Nigeria because it kills lives. The baby in the womb is alive. From five months a baby feels pain. We have cases of three-month-old babies brought abroad and they survived. We can't kill a grownup person and say it is murder; the one you kill inside is also murder."

Another speaker, Cynthia Salami fingered uncontrolled sexual immorality as one of the major reasons responsible for high incidents of abortion in the society.

Mrs. Salami added: "What we are doing is to sensitise the people on abortion and other evils of intentionally killing unborn babies. We want the public to know that there are spiritual, emotional consequences and of course, physical hazards inherent in abortion.

"We came up with the programme because we were told that 50 million babies are aborted annually worldwide every year and in the US alone 1.3 million babies are aborted every year.

"It is not just to abort the child, the life of the woman involved is even at risk. Many women face slot of consequences after abortion.

There are physical after abortion. A woman can die out excessive bleeding after abortion; we have narrowing of vagina, we also have blood infection.

"The lives of many women and of the babies are being snuffed out due to abortion. That is why we are sensitising the young who feel they are not ready to have babies but find themselves being pregnant not abort the child. We are telling them not to abort the child.

"We are calling on government not to legalise abortion. The only way we stop premature deaths of women and of unborn children is for the government not to legalise abortion.

"Most young girls would not want to go for abortion but they are afraid of their parents, rejection and consequences of their action. All the parents need do is to give the girls assurance and hope that the mistake has been made, but they can still accommodated."

In his remark, National Administrative Secretary CEM, Evangelist Charles Eso was thankful to God that abortion is yet to be legalised in the country.

"We thank God that currently abortion has not been legalised in Nigeria. We want to see a situation that there be a law in place criminalising abortion in Nigeria. We know that several people are involved in abortion cases. Our desire as an NGO is that the development of the child needs the support of everybody," he said.