Should HIV positive women be allowed to abort under existing laws, namely the Termination of Pregnancy Act”?
In my allotted time of 10 minutes I shall give you my general views on abortion and then I shall turn specifically to the provisions of the Termination of Pregnancy Act No. 29 of 1977 in an effort to answer the specific question raised in this debate. A few thousand years ago the Psalmist wrote (in Psalm 139: 13 – 16): “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 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, your eyes saw my unformed body.” From this passage we can glean that every person from the moment of conception is a person in God’s eyes, and somebody who has been fearfully and wonderfully made. I discovered this for myself last year when my wife had a scan. Her pregnancy was hardly noticeable and yet there revealed on the screen was a tiny baby sucking its thumb. Ind
