Shershah Syed Quotes
Without going into a philosophical debate on the rights of the unborn, it is important to recognize the right of women to safe abortion. Even in the case of medically-indicated abortions, the pregnancy termination often results in maternal death, and may cause serious morbidity.
Shershah Syed, Pakistani Gynecologist, Secretary General, Pakistan Medical Association, Pakistan Society of the Advancement of Community Health Education and Training (SACHET), “One more DOA - dead on arrival,” Web Column, October 4, 2005
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She was calling for universal legalization of abortion and addressing Catholic and Muslim representatives who were concerned about the morality of abortion.
This quotation is one of the best examples of political flip flopping and expedience. The quotation taken by itself is not unusual and is the same position as political candidates in Massachusetts have taken for years regardless of political party. Romney was then running for the Senate—a race that he lost. Later he ran for Governor on the same position and won. However in 2008, he decided to run for the Republican nomination for the Presidency. However, at that time, the Christian Religious Right had sufficient clout within the Republican party that no one with Romney’s position on abortion would be likely to win the nomination. So Romney reversed his position on abortion and when accused of flip-flopping for political expediency, claimed that he had had an epiphany regarding abortion. However as this quotation shows, he had always believed that the personal abortion views of candidates should NOT be brought into the campaign. However along with his epiphany on abortion itself, he conveniently now claimed every candidate should constantly declare in his campaigning his position on abortion. He also flip flopped on many other issues including repudiating the Obama Health Care reform which was modeled after the very successful program he had supported when Governor. He changed on so many issues that even the Christian Right Wing Fundamentalists, whose political positions he espoused did not always trust him, nor did most of the moderates and liberals whose views he used to claim when it was politically advantageous to do so.
Churches are political organizations too and are subject to the forces of their membership. In the case of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1971 they passed resolutions to assure the right of a woman to have an abortion to protect her health. The position on abortion changed steadily thereafter to even pass Constitutional amendments to ban abortions except to save the life of the mother. See {614356},54122, {614358}, {614359}, {614360}, {614361} for the dynamic history of the change.
Italian women have been relatively inactive in political affairs. It took issues like abortion and contraception to galvanize Italian women into political activism. 50,000 women marched in this demonstration. Even though Italy is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic and the Vatican is a major opponent of birth control and abortion, both soon become legal in Catholic Italy despite the opposition of the Vatican.
Shershah Syed is a Pakistani physician and surgeon, known for his work in obstetrics and maternal health. He was involved in providing emergency medical assistance to victims of the 2010 Pakistan floods. He was the President of the Society of Obstetricians & Gynecologists of Pakistan from 2007–2010, He is the current President of the International Society of Fistula Surgeons (ISOFS) and also the Pakistan National Forum on Women's Health (PNFWH).
