UPDATE: The voting did not happen but is scheduled to be soon. We need this bill to be withdrawn immediately!
Today, (Tuesday 22 August) Liberian senators will vote to legalize abortion through the Public Health Bill during a special session of the Senate of Liberia.
Under Liberia’s current law, abortion is allowed in exceptional circumstances - where the mother’s life is at risk, rape/incest/felonious intercourse, and disability of the fetus. These are rare situations.
The Public Health Bill will scrap Liberia’s current abortion law and replace it with an extreme law that allows abortion, for any reason, on demand, up to when the baby in the womb is at 14 weeks gestation.
It has been estimated that this change from allowing abortion in exceptional circumstances to allowing abortion on demand would lead to the lives of 40,000 babies being lost to abortion in Liberia every single year.
This data demonstrates that this bill would introduce a very big change to legislation in Liberia and would directly lead to the death of thousands of innocent babies through abortion in Liberia.
The Swedish government and other foreign NGOs have been creating and funding organizations in Liberia (particularly the Amplifying Rights Network) to lobby for the legalization of abortion.
There are credible allegations of bribery including large cash payments of $20,000 each being made to senators from the Government of Sweden for voting in support of the bill.
Foreign Government interference in the democratic process of Liberia is totally unacceptable and a form of neo-colonialism that you must reject.
This Bill can be stopped. Please visit www.StopLiberiaAbortionBill.com now to use the free easy tool to send a message to senators asking them to vote against the bill.
It will only take 30 seconds of your time!
Sources:
● Past coverage on the abortion bill
○ https://smartnewsliberia.com/cmda-we-are-compelled-to-resist-the-proposalsto-legalize-abortion-in-liberia/
○ https://smartnewsliberia.com/swedish-govt-bribes-liberian-senators-us20k-ea
ch-to-legalize-abortion-in-liberia/
○ https://frontpageafricaonline.com/news/congressman-smith-calls-on-liberi...
enate-to-reject-pro-abortion-bill/
● 40,000 abortions estimate
○ One in four (25%) of pregnancies ends in abortion in Sweden where abortion
is available on demand
(https://gateway.euro.who.int/en/indicators/hfa_586-7010-abortions-per-10...
ive-births/visualizations/#id=19681&tab=table shows 316 abortions for every
1k live births).
○ There are at least 170,000 pregnancies in Liberia per year
(https://statisticstimes.com/demographics/country/liberia-demographics.php).
○ If 25% of pregnancies in Liberia ended in abortion, there would be at least
42,500 abortions per a year.
● The Swedish government’s involvement:
○ https://www.rfsu.se/om-rfsu/om-oss/in-english/international-work2/where-wework/liberia/rfsu-co-organises-liberias-first-srhr-conference/
○ https://elbcradio.com/2023/05/24/liberia-to-host-first-ever-sexual-repro...
-health-rights-conferenc
○ https://www.sida.se/en/sidas-international-work/countries-and-regions/li...
● Allegations of bribery:
○ https://independentprobe.com/2023/08/17/20k-each-for-lawmakers-to-pass-a
bortion-bill-busted/
○ https://smartnewsliberia.com/swedish-govt-bribes-liberian-senators-us20k-ea