While this piece of legislation in Trinidad and Tobago provides that abortion is generally illegal
under statute, abortions are allowed under the common law in order to preserve the mental and
physical health of the pregnant woman. Trinidad and Tobago, like several other Commonwealth
countries, whose legal systems are based on the English common law, follows the 1938 English
Rex v. Bourne decision in determining whether an abortion performed for health reasons is
lawful. In the case of Rex v. Bourne, a physician was acquitted of the offence of performing an
abortion in the case of a woman who had been raped. It was held by the court that the abortion
was lawful because it had been performed in order to prevent the woman from becoming a
“physical and mental wreck”, thus setting a precedent for future abortion cases performed on the
grounds of preserving the pregnant woman’s physical and mental health. Thus, the combined
effect of statute and case law is that abortions should be permitted to preserve a woman’s life and
health, including her mental health.
However, this single exception to which abortion is legally permitted arguably restricts the rights
and freedoms of the pregnant woman with respect to additional circumstances that warrant
unwanted pregnancies. These include instances of rape, incest, foetal impairment and pregnancy
of minors. Thus, the issue at hand is whether a pregnant woman should be able to choose to have
an abortion under these conditions.
In Trinidad and Tobago, there have been recent legal arguments by the legislature and nongovernmental bodies on the question of legalizing abortion which have sparked public
controversy and parliamentary debate. These arguments have been consensually centred around
the necessity for new legislative reform with aim of broadening the scope for which abortions
should be legally permitted. For example, the leading non-governmental and non-profit advocacy
group, ASPIRE (Advocates for Safe Parenthood: Improving Reproductive Equity) has
extensively contributed to this debate by lobbying for abortion law reform and new legislation.
The goals of this organization include clarification of the application of the law through the
provision of policy, protocols and guidelines and reducing the incidences of unsafe abortions by
broadening the scope for legalizing abortion. A national survey carried out by ASPIRE revealed
that more than half of the respondents were in favour of broadening the legal grounds for
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