People fed up with abortion flyers
Barbertonians though, have had it with abortion flyers plastered all over town.
The changeover to democracy has brought with it a new set of rules as far as South African laws regarding legal, state-performed abortions is concerned. This has been applauded by the media over recent years and since 2004 legal state-performed abortions have increased immensely. Making decisions about her own reproductive health is every woman’s right.
The issue is still debatable, especially among certain religious groups. Seeing that girls, mostly aged 13 to 19, visited illegal abortion clinics, and taking into account that these visits resulted in innumerable deaths, there was certainly grounds for legalising such a law.
Barbertonians though, have had it with abortion flyers plastered all over town. Every so often, and seemingly overnight, every available lamp post and signboard in Barberton gets turned into marketing space for posters and adverts offering these services.
During a recent meeting with the station commander of the SAPS, Col George Mshazo Tau, he undertook to make work of the latter, but upon following up last week, Barberton Times learned that Tau has left after only a few months, and that a new station commander has been appointed. This reporter tried numerous times to get hold of Brig Dorah Xaba, but was told to phone the provincial media communications officer, Col Leonard Hlathi, as she (Xaba) was busy and not speaking to the media.
On Monday we tried to get hold of Hlathi on the number supplied by the brigadier’s secretary. The new station commander, Col Masiya, was also otherwise engaged it seemed, as not a single attempt to get hold of him proved fruitful.
Readers wanted to know why nothing was being done about these illegal flyers. “It is a disgrace and humiliating, not to mention illegal and something should be done!” said an outraged mother.
Another reader, Gerhard van Rensburg writes, “As I drive through Barberton early in the mornings I can’t help but notice these so-called same-day abortions adverts all over the town on every lamp post, road sign and wall you can reach. As far as my knowledge goes it’s illegal to post a notice without permission from the municipality.
Why don’t the police do something about these horrible adverts? It has a big cellphone number on it and it should be Rica registered, which would make it easy to find the guilty party and fine them and get them to clean up our beautiful town.”
ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) can contact these culprits and ask for their medical legitimacy, but going through the channels is tedious. After numerous attempts to obtain response from SAPS officials, Barberton Times would still like to ask them why nothing has been done to date.
