SOYI­NI GREY

soyi­ni.grey@guardian.co.tt

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Sec­re­tary for Health Dr Faith B. Yis­rael says she will sup­port ac­cess to re­pro­duc­tive rights, in­for­ma­tion and fair treat­ment for fe­males, even if it costs her po­lit­i­cal­ly.

Dr B. Yis­rael made the com­ment at the open­ing of the Trinidad and To­ba­go branch of the In­ter­na­tion­al Planned Par­ent­hood Fed­er­a­tion- Amer­i­c­as and the Caribbean Re­gion (IPPF-ACRO) of­fice at the Trinci­ty Busi­ness Park on Thurs­day.

B. Yis­rael de­scribed her­self as an ad­vo­cate for ac­cess, in­for­ma­tion and fair treat­ment while speak­ing to jour­nal­ists af­ter the rib­bon was cut to of­fi­cial­ly open the IPPF-ACRO of­fice.

“I would say as an in­di­vid­ual who has ac­tu­al­ly lived in the Unit­ed States for over ten years, as some­one who has ac­tu­al­ly used the ser­vices of fam­i­ly plan­ning, I am hap­py that those...that the ca­pac­i­ty to do that is al­so avail­able here in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” she said.

The IPPF-ACRO of­fice will be based in two lo­ca­tions, Colom­bia and Trinidad & To­ba­go. The par­ent IPPF or­gan­i­sa­tion is based in 140 coun­tries and pro­vides sex ed­u­ca­tion, con­tra­cep­tion and ma­ter­nal care.

In coun­tries where le­gal, it al­so pro­vides ac­cess to safe abor­tion, which is on­ly per­mis­si­ble in this coun­try in cas­es where preg­nan­cy would en­dan­ger the moth­er’s life, or if car­ry­ing the child to term would harm her men­tal health.

Ac­cord­ing to the Of­fences Against the Body Act, a woman who at­tempts to pro­cure an abor­tion is li­able to four years im­pris­on­ment, and the per­son who sup­plies “any poi­son or oth­er nox­ious thing, or any in­stru­ment or thing what­so­ev­er, know­ing that the same is in­tend­ed to be un­law­ful­ly used or em­ployed with in­tent to pro­cure the mis­car­riage of any woman, whether she is or is not with child, is li­able to im­pris­on­ment for two years.”

When asked her po­si­tion on abor­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go, Dr B. Yis­rael said the law did not pre­vent women from ac­cess­ing abor­tion, not­ing they some­times risked their health in the process.

“We have to re­al­ly, re­al­ly con­sid­er whether the laws that we have in place, whether they re­al­ly work, whether they re­al­ly are the best. Whether we need to think about the needs of vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple in a way that makes it safe for them, and makes it safe for their fam­i­lies,” she said.

The Health Sec­re­tary, who has a Mas­ter’s and a Doc­tor of Pub­lic Health (DrPH) de­grees in Be­hav­iour­al and Com­mu­ni­ty Health Sci­ences, was asked if she was con­cerned that at­tend­ing the launch and giv­ing pub­lic sup­port to the IPPF-ACRO would hurt her po­lit­i­cal­ly. She seemed un­fazed, say­ing, “The peo­ple will speak.”

But the Health Sec­re­tary al­so said when she speaks to young peo­ple, they are clear­ly in­ter­est­ed in sex ed­u­ca­tion and want the in­for­ma­tion.

She said many of these young peo­ple are al­ready grap­pling with dif­fi­cult de­ci­sions re­lat­ed to their sex­u­al ac­tiv­i­ty and sex­u­al health.

But on the ques­tion of whether To­ba­go is pre­pared to lead Trinidad on ac­cess to abor­tion, B. Yis­rael said To­ba­go had demon­strat­ed a will­ing­ness to do the things that most peo­ple were not will­ing to do and if a pol­i­cy need­ed to be made, then the PDP-led THA ad­min­is­tra­tion would be will­ing to make it.

“Our Chief Sec­re­tary has shown that we are will­ing to stand up and that we are will­ing to speak about things that even Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment has not been will­ing to do,” she said.

B. Yis­rael was at the event to sup­port her friend Dona Da Cos­ta Mar­tinez, who has been in­stalled as deputy di­rec­tor of the IPPF-ACRO of­fice based in Trinidad.