“I didn’t want you to judge me,” was the reply I got from an old friend upon inquiring a few years ago, why she’d had an abortion. I had known her since primary school and, up to that moment, I thought we’d shared everything. It was disheartening to realize that she’d made a life-changing decision in such painful isolation. But this is the story of countless Jamaican women shamed into silence, forced to hide pregnancies lest they be accused of immorality, infidelity, or worse. Both by their partners, and the larger community which ascribes to abortion with such chilling phrases as ‘dash weh belly’ or ‘walking cemetery’.
