MONROVIA – As the debate over abortion in Liberian society intensifies, Bishop Kortu K. Brown is calling on Liberians and their lawmakers to carefully consider whether to seek to legalize abortion on demand for any reason, up to 14 weeks. “I agree that Liberia should allow abortion for risk reasons and not just for any reason at all. If there is a risk to a mother’s life and/or for rape, incest and disability, I believe that abortion is possible. And this is already legal in Liberia”. He however cautioned against any law that would legalize abortion for more than 3 months for any reason at all other than for threats to a mother’s life, incest, rape, or disability. He argued that a life from God is involved.
The Pentecostal cleric in a statement issued today rejects abortion being committed for any reason for a young baby almost 4 months old in the mother’s womb, contending that “that would give Liberia one of the most extreme abortion laws in Africa, even more extreme than most European countries”. The former president of the Interreligious Council of Liberia (IRCL) further argued that “according to research, by 14 weeks or almost 4 months, a baby has all of its major organs formed including a beating heart; it is able to feel pain, and so on. Therefore abortion cannot be legalized on demand, for any reason, only because a person wants an abortion even if their lives are not threatened and they have not suffered incest, rape, or disability”.
The Bishop of the Apostolic Pentecostal Church International further contends that “studies show that in some countries of the world where abortion has been legalized, 1 in 4 children are aborted which is like losing a quarter of the country’s population just through legal abortion alone”, added, “it is difficult to articulate what a catastrophic impact that has had on those countries because there is no turning back once abortion is legalized, so once the floodgates are opened, thousands of children in Liberia will be legally killed”. He spoke on Saturday, July 15, 2023, to students of LICOSES Teacher’s College training program on New Water in the Desert Apostolic Pentecostal Church Campus in Brewerville, Montserrado County following a 2-day program RESET retreat of the Apostolic Pentecostal Church International which ended Friday, July 14, 2023.
Bishop Brown, who is also the immediate past president of the Liberia Council of Churches says that performing abortion just over 3 months would be something to carefully study because most abortions take place within the first 14 weeks, so such new law would make most abortions legal. If the rate came to European levels, “about 15,000 children could be lost by abortion each year in Liberia because the proposed law allows abortion for any reason at all, not merely for risks to the mother’s life, and not merely for rape, incest and/or disability”, arguing that “exceptional abortions are already legal in Liberia…”
The Bishop calls on Liberian lawmakers to engage a more moderate bill as they revise the Public Health Bill that would actually improve on the 1976 law instead of adopting laws that could have an unfavorable impact on the population of the country in years to come.
In the statement, Bishop Brown reiterates Psalms Chapter 139 verses 13 thru 16 which says, “Every child has a right to life whether born or unborn.”
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be”.
