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"id": 1423529,
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"speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale",
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"speaker": {
"id": 170,
"legal_name": "Bonny Khalwale",
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"content": "I remember 20 years ago when I came to Parliament, I moved a Motion seeking to ensure that pregnant women receive cash, but it was defeated at that time. If we are transferring cash to people who are 70 years and above, it is time we addressed the other end. We transfer cash to geriatrics. Let us do the same to paediatrics. We should not just care about old people and forget about women who give birth to the children who will eventually become old. Clause 9 of the Bill seeks to provide services for women with special needs. This is very important. We have a list from (a) to (f), specifying women who deserve special needs. The Bill is clear, but I want to draw the attention of the Mover to something small that has been left out. When I was practicing medicine at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) and Pumwani Maternity Hospital, young mothers would come to the labour wards. Once a mother pushed a child out, the child would shoot the first cry and you could also hear the scream of the mother. Some of them used to say; daktari sitaki mtoto . The midwives would quickly respond by lifting the child to show the mother so that they bond. A mother would still turn her head, close the eyes and say she does not want to see the baby. This Bill should provide especially for adolescents who do not want to keep their children after giving birth. Once we have this in law, we will know what to do. It is important because nurses are usually under a lot of pressure. In Pumwani Maternity Hospital, you can have 40 or 50 women giving birth to children within one minute. Therefore, nurses become overwhelmed. Human traffickers take advantage to traffic those children who are then denied an opportunity to go to the hands of loving people. They end up in traffickers’ hands whose interest is to make money. I thought you should add that. Clause 10 speaks about courteous treatment. For purposes of this Act, a woman with special needs includes a woman with disability, mental illness or from a marginalised area. I agree fully, but I propose that you add the issue of infertility because it is also a special need. Whereas in this Bill we are imagining that everybody has an opportunity to get pregnant, we have others who have challenges with conception. These are the people who require support by medical specialists, so that they can get babies. Colleagues, you have heard of In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and surrogate mothers who have fertilized ovum implanted in their uterus. They carry babies for women with fertility issues and hand them over later. We need to put this into law. Since IVF is very expensive, we should see how to support ordinary Kenyan women who have infertility challenges, but cannot afford this procedure. Secondly, we need to tighten the law because if it is not there, a surrogate mother may become attached to the baby after carrying it for nine months. After delivery, she might refuse to release that child to the woman who donated the ovum and whose husband’s sperm was used to fertilize before it was implanted in the surrogate mother. We need this in law. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, we have another challenge that I would like to draw to the attention of the Mover. Not all people who get pregnant want to see the pregnancy to term. Some of them, who would like to carry a pregnancy to term, fail to reach there because of abortion. Abortion is not well addressed in the laws of this country. Therefore, The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}