RIGHTS-SOUTH AFRICA: Expectant Mothers Find Home

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Dawn Muir

DURBAN, Feb 18 1999 (IPS) - Eighteen years ago, Gail Schreiner flew to Britain to terminate her pregnancy, because abortion was then illegal in South Africa.

At a Manchester clinic in Britain, Schreiner’s confusion and unhappiness led her to change her mind an hour before the operation.

Arriving back in South Africa, she faced her parents who were against the idea of having a baby out of a wedlock, and her partner was angry that she had changed her mind. Schreiner was ultimately left alone as disappointment and family values caused her parents to turn their backs on her.

“The future looked bleak and lonely,” Schreiner recalls. “I was experiencing extreme emotional turmoil, and eventually sought help at a crisis centre in Durban.”

She met Betts Moore, who became her surrogate mother and supported her through the pregnancy, in the South African port city of Durban. Schreiner gave birth to a baby boy and several years later met her husband, who adopted her son and the couple now have a daughter as well.

As a result of her experience, Schreiner started a ‘Pregnancy Crisis Centre’ in Amanzimtoti on South Africa’s KwaZulu Natal south coast.

The centre offers counselling support to women, who have decided to continue their pregnancy, up to the birth and in the months that follow. Schreiner and her team have, on many occasions, taken expectant mothers to hospital in the early hours of the morning.

“There is no greater privilege than witnessing the birth of a child,” she says.

If a woman decides to give her baby up for adoption, her counsellor liaise with a registered social worker. The expectant mother can choose to have her baby adopted using the ‘disclosed’ or ‘non disclosed’ method.

The ‘disclosed’ system allows her to look at profiles of prospective adoptive parents. She may want to choose a professional couple or a couple of the same ethnic background. She may also want to meet with them.

“This method works very well,” says Schreiner, “but there have been some occasions where things have not gone according to plan.”

She recalls how one of her new mothers changed her mind about having her baby adopted 12 hours before the adoptive parents were due to receive the baby.

“I was crying, the adoptive parents were crying and the young mother was crying. It was an incredibly sad experience,” she says.

The centre, which deals with about 20 cases a month, has now opened its branches in Pietermaritzburg, East London, and Ellisras on the border with Botswana. Rural crisis centres are in the pipeline for KwaZulu Natal in KwaMakhutha, Eshove and Newcastle.

The centre has hired a number of volunteers who network and train counsellors as well as set up education structures on sexuality and AIDs awareness.

“The centre is pro-life and tries to counsel against an abortion decision,” says Schreiner. “However we are non- judgmental and present the expectant mother with all the facts on abortion.”

“Since abortion became legal in South Africa in 1997, more women are choosing to have the procedure,” she says.

The ‘Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act’, introduced in 1997, now ensures that women have access to abort unwanted pregnancies without the consent of their partners. The act repealed legislation which condemned about 300,000 women annually to illegal abortions.

During the first 18 months of the act’s inception 161,384 legal abortions were conducted in South Africa, according to official statistics, despite widespread opposition to the practice.

Moore, who heads the Durban branch, says “the centre never turns people away.”

“In 1998 a large group of refugees from Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic of Congo, Somali and Congo-Brazaville asked us for assistance. Many wives and young girls were heavily pregnant and had experience unbelievable hardship whilst fleeing their troubled countries. With limited resources, and the help of Addington Hospital in Durban, we were able to assist in the healthy arrival of numerous babies,” she says.

Moore has kept a file on the families and reports that most are now self-supporting, and thriving.

Schreiner’s hopes that eventually all Pregnancy Crisis Centres will be able to offer facilities similar to those in the United States which have full medical facilities with doctors and radiologists.