At least one member of the local clergy has thrown his support behind Juliet Cuthbert-Flynn, state minister in the Ministry of Health and Wellness, who last week reignited the abortion debate in Jamaica with her perceived public support of the procedure.

Cuthbert-Flynn, reacting to the historic legalisation of abortions in heavily Catholic Argentina, said it was time for Jamaica to revisit its laws and make the practice safer for young girls and women.

“The win for Argentina is a huge win for Latin American countries and also our Caribbean islands who have not updated their laws, and I think in Jamaica, we need to now look at what is happening. It is an issue that we must tackle,” she told the Jamaica Gleaner.

The issue has, however, brought the opinions of those who fiercely oppose abortions back to the fore, as religious groups sing of calamity and damnation.

One such anti-abortionist is Bishop Alvin Bailey, vice president of the Jamaica Association of Evangelicals, who asked for Prime Minister Andrew Holness to “rein in” Cuthbert-Flynn on Monday (January 11).

Bailey went further to demand Holness “renounce in Parliament any intention to further pursue the abortion agenda”.

However, among those in Jamaica’s clergy who disagree with Bailey’s pro-life position, and side with women on the basis that abortions ultimately should be left up to women, is Anglican priest, The Reverend Sean Major-Campbell.

Major-Campbel, in an interview with Our Today, slammed Bailey’s rhetoric as unhelpful. He said that too often the Church tries to interfere in state affairs, pushing its own demands as opposed to offering guidance.

“The matter of the sexual and reproductive health rights of women is a human rights issue. The government is duty-bound to protect these rights,” he told Our Today.

“While pastors and churches are free to parade political issues as religion, it is not their place to command the political directorate,” Major-Campbell added.

The reverend argued that, with such a polarising topic, young girls and women deserve compassion and direction, not derision.

When asked how he felt about abortions in Jamaica, Major-Campbell said: “The same as any other place. Women should be facilitated with professional counselling whenever they are faced with this difficult choice.

“It is so painful to see pastors condemning these women and, the next day, giving money to get the 13-year-old girl impregnated by a married pastor, an abortion at earliest convenience.” 

Major-Campbell told Our Today that like their counterparts in the United States, evangelicals are misguided.

“Recent events in American politics have shown us how misguided the US evangelicals have been. They have sold their souls to the religious right, and are gleefully parading along the broad road of destruction,” he contended.

It is a stance Cuthbert-Flynn, mother of two, has held for years— highlighted in a 2018 interview with Reuters when she first tabled a motion in the House of Representatives for the Government to consider relaxing the abortion laws to ensure that women have access to safe abortions. 

At the time Cuthbert-Flynn, who wasn’t yet a portfolio minister, asserted that women, especially those who are poor, needed to have safe options as they were disproportionately affected by the law. 

“There is a life sentence attached to (having an abortion), and those are punitive measures that definitely need to be repealed,” Cuthbert-Flynn told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

According to World Bank data in 2015, Jamaica’s maternal mortality rate was 89 deaths per 100,000 live births. In 2018, the Ministry of Health’s most recent statistics showed that the maternal mortality rate stood at 80 deaths per 100,000 live births and the infant mortality rate was 25 per 1,000 live births.

It is estimated that in excess of 22,000 Jamaican women, despite the legal consequences, go through with an abortion each year.