By Fr. Johnston Z. Mlambo
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the November edition of the Catholic Church News. It has since been updated to include additional legislative context and recent developments surrounding the Medical Services Amendment Bill.
The views expressed in this article are the personal views of Fr. Johnston Mlambo, written in his personal capacity as a priest and social commentator who is passionate about reflecting on societal issues and drawing parallels with Christian principles.
Zimbabwe is standing before one of the most consequential moral decisions since Independence. Parliament is currently debating the Medical Services Amendment Bill, a proposal that would dramatically expand abortion access across the country.
This discussion has gained momentum partly because of heartfelt concerns such as those raised by Hon. Molokela-Tsiye, who argues that the Termination of Pregnancy Act of 1977 is outdated and unfair to poor women.
He insists that “if you want to have safe abortion, you need to have money” and that the average Zimbabwean woman is forced into unsafe procedures.
To him, the 1977 Act “must go,” and abortion must be more widely accessible.
His concerns reflect genuine sympathy for women in difficult situations — a sympathy shared by society, the Church, and every person of goodwill.
The trauma of rape, the fear of unplanned pregnancy, and the realities of poverty are not abstract ideas; they affect real women, girls, and families.
But sympathy, however genuine, does not automatically make abortion either safe, moral, or helpful to the woman involved.
And the actual content of the bill before Parliament reveals that it goes far beyond addressing unsafe abortions.
It fundamentally rewrites Zimbabwe’s moral, cultural, and legal foundations in ways that carry profound consequences for women, children, families, and society.
The bill allows abortion on demand for all girls under eighteen, meaning a minor can request an abortion for any reason during the first twelve weeks and for extremely broad reasons — such as “mental health” — up to twenty weeks.
The language is so permissive that a schoolgirl as young as thirteen could request an abortion on the grounds of feeling stressed, afraid, or unprepared.
Her word alone would be enough. In a society that values parental guidance, this is alarming.
Adolescence is an age already shaped by a craving for convenience and instant solutions — the same culture that elevates personal choice above every other consideration, including moral duty, family bonds, and even God.
Personal desire becomes the supreme measure of truth and morality. Young people, influenced by this culture, often prioritise convenience above everything else — even God.
The bill reinforces this worldview by treating abortion as a simple, consequence-free solution to an inconvenient pregnancy, giving a minor life-and-death authority without the guidance or wisdom of the adults responsible for her wellbeing.
Equally alarming is that parents are completely excluded.
The bill explicitly states that the only consent required is that of the pregnant minor herself — not her parents, not her guardian, not even the police in cases of suspected abuse. Doctors may advise the girl to consult her parents, but she is free to refuse, and the doctor may proceed regardless.
This effectively cuts out parents from one of the most serious crises their child may ever face.
It hands to a frightened schoolgirl a decision with profound emotional, medical, and spiritual consequences, at an age where impulsive decisions and vulnerability are at their highest.
This secrecy also becomes a powerful shield for predators.
By removing evidence requirements for rape, incest, and unlawful intercourse, the bill unintentionally protects abusers more than victims.
A man who impregnates a girl — whether a teacher, neighbour, relative, or older boyfriend — can simply escort her quietly to a clinic.
The abortion erases all evidence: no pregnancy, no medical report, no police case, no parental awareness. The cycle of abuse continues unchecked.
In a society where many victims already face threats, coercion, and pressure to keep silent, this bill makes concealment even easier.
For adults, the bill authorises abortion up to twenty weeks based on “mental health,” a category so elastic it can include stress, financial worries, relationship difficulties, or simply feeling overwhelmed. International experience demonstrates how such provisions lead to abortion on demand.
According to annual reports from the UK Department of Health and Social Care, around 98% of all abortions in England and Wales are authorised under this mental-health clause.
This is not because 98% of women were diagnosed with mental illness, but because “mental distress” is interpreted so expansively that almost any reason qualifies.
The bill also permits abortion up to birth in emergency situations, including those involving emotional distress.
This opens the door to late-term abortions of fully formed babies, an ethically grave practice even in countries with liberal abortion laws.
The legislation further enables sex-selective abortion, even if unintentionally.
A woman may claim that carrying a girl — rather than a boy — would affect her mental health.
In societies where gender bias remains a concern, this could lead to unborn girls being disproportionately targeted.
This is not hypothetical; it is a tragic reality in countries such as India and China, where sex-selective abortion has led to demographic crises.
A similar logic applies to babies diagnosed with disabilities.
Under the bill, they may be aborted up to birth if abnormalities are suspected.
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has repeatedly condemned such provisions as discriminatory and eugenic in nature.
All these provisions stand in stark contradiction to Catholic moral theology and Christian ethics.
The Christian worldview — rooted in Scripture and affirmed by the Church — teaches that a human life is not self-created.
It has a source, a purpose, and a destiny, and that origin and destiny is God.
Human beings do not own human life; they are stewards of it.
In this light, abortion becomes not an act of liberation, but an act of rejecting the Author of Life Himself.
It reflects the deeper crisis of modern culture — a culture where the individual becomes the measure of everything, where convenience overrides conscience, and where the pursuit of personal autonomy eclipses the call to responsibility, solidarity, and submission to God’s will.
The unborn child is not a problem to be solved, but a person to be protected. The Christian ethical tradition insists that both mother and child deserve care, support, and dignity.
One of the most emotionally charged arguments used to justify abortion is rape.
And indeed, no one should underestimate or trivialise the raw terror, humiliation, and trauma that rape inflicts upon a woman.
Yet compassion must never lead to falsehood.
Abortion advocates repeatedly use rape cases as a moral trump card — claiming that abortion is necessary because rape-related pregnancies condemn women to lifelong emotional pain.
But this is not what evidence shows.
A landmark study by Dr. S. Mahkorn, published in The Psychological Aspects of Abortion (1979), examined 37 rape-related pregnancies.
Twenty-eight women chose to continue their pregnancy, while five chose abortion.
Among those who continued, two-thirds reported increasing positive feelings toward their unborn children, improved self-esteem, and reduced anxiety and depression as the pregnancy progressed.
By contrast, most of the women who chose abortion later regretted it, describing it as a second traumatic event layered upon the first.
These findings are echoed in the Elliot Institute’s research report Rape, Incest and Abortion: Searching Beyond the Myths, which reviewed 164 similar cases.
In that study, none of the women who carried to term expressed regret, while many who had abortions said it intensified their emotional pain.
These insights reveal a powerful truth: abortion does not heal the trauma of rape. It often compounds it.
True compassion accompanies the victim, rather than offering a second wound disguised as a solution.
Beyond theology and moral reasoning, the social consequences of abortion liberalisation are equally serious.
African experience provides sobering lessons.
In Ethiopia, abortion numbers rose sharply after the law was liberalised in 2005.
In South Africa, after abortion was legalised in 1996, the country saw a significant surge in abortion numbers, yet unsafe abortions continued.
Legal and illegal abortions now occur side by side.
Research also notes rising promiscuity, particularly among young people who view abortion as a backup plan.
This has contributed to higher rates of sexually transmitted infections, emotional turmoil, family breakdown, and long-term psychological distress.
These realities reveal that abortion liberalisation does not solve the problem of unsafe abortion.
Instead, it increases total abortions, increases sexual risk-taking, and exposes women to new layers of harm.
Zimbabwe is therefore at a pivotal crossroads.
On one path lies a future in which life becomes disposable, predators act with impunity, the family is weakened, moral clarity is eroded, and the unborn — the most voiceless among us — are left unprotected.
On the other path lies a culture that values responsibility over convenience, community over radical individualism, and life over death.
A culture rooted in African values, Christian ethics, and the belief that every human being — from conception to natural death — is loved by God and worthy of protection.
This national debate is not occurring in isolation.
The Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference (ZCBC) has also issued a pastoral statement dated 13 December 2025, describing the moment as a critical test for the nation’s moral conscience.
In their words, “the whole world celebrated with us last year as the country abolished the death penalty and today it watches as we take a back step and sanction the massacre of the innocent.”
The bishops warned soberly that “history will judge us harshly for failing to defend the lives of the weaker members of our society,” and made a direct appeal to lawmakers to choose life.
As custodians of both faith and national conscience, the bishops reaffirmed that “the Church upholds the sanctity of life from conception to a natural death,” urging citizens to pray, speak out, and engage their representatives as the Bill moves through Parliament.
The Zimbabwe Heads of Christian Denominations (ZHOCD) have also issued a strong pastoral statement warning that the proposed changes “risk cheapening the value of life and undermining the moral fabric that binds our nation together.”
They cautioned that no law should “grant unchecked power over human life, especially where the vulnerable are concerned.”
Their voice reflects the broad Christian conviction that a nation cannot build peace, justice, or development on the destruction of its own children.
This debate is not merely about law. It is about identity. It is about the soul of the nation.
And it calls Zimbabwe to choose with courage and clarity: Will we embrace a culture of life, or surrender to a culture of death disguised as progress?
The stakes could not be higher.
For the future of our children, our families, and our nation, Zimbabwe must choose life.
Legislative Context and Current Status of the Medical Services Amendment Bill
To fully appreciate the gravity of this moment, it is important to situate the debate within its precise legislative context.
The Medical Services Amendment Bill was gazetted on 19 July 2024 and remains before Parliament. It has already passed its Second Reading and Committee Stage in the National Assembly, where several amendments were proposed and debated.
As of 2 December 2024, the Bill was at the Consideration Stage, after which it must proceed to the Third Reading. Only then can it be transmitted to the Senate, and subsequently require Presidential assent before becoming law.
Contrary to some public perceptions, this Bill is not yet law. However, its current form contains clauses that would significantly widen access to abortion in Zimbabwe, effectively legalising it under far broader conditions than those permitted under the existing legal framework.
This is precisely why the Bill has generated intense national debate and strong resistance from churches, traditional leaders, and other moral voices.
Zimbabwe’s existing abortion law is governed by the Termination of Pregnancy Act (TOPA) of 1977, one of the most restrictive abortion regimes in the region.
Under TOPA, abortion is permitted only in narrowly defined circumstances: when the pregnancy endangers the woman’s physical or mental health, or when the pregnancy results from rape or incest — and even then, only after certification by a magistrate.
These safeguards were deliberately designed to balance compassion for women in distress with the protection of unborn life.
The Medical Services Amendment Bill seeks to radically alter this framework by introducing provisions that include:
- Allowing abortion on request up to 12 weeks of gestation;
- Expanding grounds for abortion up to 20 weeks on the basis of broadly defined physical, mental, or socio-economic factors;
- Permitting girls under the age of 18 to obtain abortions without parental or guardian consent, relying solely on their own informed consent;
- Removing spousal notification requirements for married women;
- Allowing approval of abortion procedures by a single medical practitioner in most cases.
These provisions collectively amount to a de facto legalisation of abortion and dismantle long-standing safeguards intended to protect women, families, and unborn children.
Supporters of liberalisation often argue that restrictive laws fuel unsafe abortions. Indeed, the Ministry of Health has acknowledged rising cases of illegal terminations, particularly among teenagers.
A 2024 public health survey estimated that approximately 219 pregnancies are terminated every day in Zimbabwe — nearly nine abortions per hour — many involving adolescents and young women without access to safe medical care.
Unintended pregnancies remain alarmingly high. Nearly 40 percent of all pregnancies between 2016 and 2017 were classified as unplanned, and more than a quarter of those ended in abortion.
The social fallout is visible in rising cases of abandoned infants; 63 baby-dumping cases were officially recorded in 2023, with experts warning that the true figure is likely much higher due to underreporting.
Yet these realities do not justify the wholesale removal of moral, familial, and legal safeguards. Evidence from other countries shows that liberalisation does not eliminate unsafe abortions; rather, it increases total abortion numbers while introducing new forms of exploitation, secrecy, and psychological harm.
These concerns are echoed forcefully by the Zimbabwe Heads of Christian Denominations (ZHOCD), who in a pastoral letter dated 29 November 2025 warned that the proposed amendments constitute a “serious constitutional and moral challenge.”
They cautioned that provisions allowing abortion on request up to 20 weeks, permitting minors to terminate pregnancies without parental knowledge, and removing spousal notification threaten to dismantle Zimbabwe’s moral foundations.
The ZHOCD also raised alarm over vague mental-health clauses, which could enable late-term or sex-selective abortions, weaken reporting requirements, and increase risks for women and girls.
Their position is not partisan but principled — rooted in theology, African cultural values, and constitutional commitments to protect the vulnerable.
In appealing to Christians to engage their Members of Parliament, the churches reaffirmed that the defence of life is inseparable from the defence of social stability, moral integrity, and authentic human dignity.