Jamaicans Say No To Abortion. Gleaner Poll Shows 69% In Favour Of Retaining Law.... Father Richard Ho Lung, is "extremely heartened" that at least seven in 10 Jamaicans are against changing the country's abortion laws.

Anastasia Cunningham, News Coordinator Published: Tuesday | October 7, 2014

Father Richard Ho Lung, founder of the Roman Catholic charity organisation Missionaries of the Poor, is "extremely heartened" that at least seven in 10 Jamaicans are against changing the country's abortion laws.

Father Richard Ho Lung

In the September 2014 Gleaner-commissioned Bill Johnson poll, 69 per cent of 1,208 Jamaicans surveyed said the law should not be changed, 22 per cent said make the law easier, while nine per cent did not have an opinion.

They were responding to the question: 'At the present time, it is against the law in Jamaica in most cases for a woman to have an abortion, do you think the law should be changed to make it easier for a woman to have an abortion, or should the law not be changed a this time?'

"I am very, very heartened by the response," Ho Lung told The Gleaner yesterday.

"I am totally and completely against abortion. I think it will lead to a death culture, which is beginning to erode places like Europe. More and more rampant we are seeing the killing of children from in the womb, the killing of older persons by euthanasia, and more and more suicides. On top of that, we are seeing endless messages that there is no God. It is a definite push on the part of the Evil One."

He added, "Jamaica cannot lose its morality, which comes from the hands of God. And if we legally sanction the killing of innocent babies from in the womb, then we are heading down an evil path."

Ho Lung has been championing the fight against legalising abortion for several years, which began in earnest in 2006 after two missionary brothers found aborted babies thrown in a garbage dump in Jamaica.

In 2011, the charity group opened the Holy Innocents Women in Crisis Centre in Kingston as an alternative to abortion for pregnant women in trouble.

Ho Lung, along with the Drs Doreen and Wayne West-led Coalition for the Defence of Life, also took the debate to the streets, hosting a number of public forums on the issue. more