<B>By Deepa BHOOKHUN</B>

Any pregnant woman out there? I?m desperately looking for a pregnant woman who doesn?t want to keep her baby. No, no, I am not looking to adopt but I have a grand plan.

I need a pregnant woman who would be willing to go to the Supreme Court and ask our enlightened judges their opinion about the law prohibiting abortion. I think we could be in for a surprise. I?m sorry, but it seems we have to resort to drastic measures because we cannot count on those silly people we sent to the National Assembly in 2005. How can we, when they spend their time bickering among themselves about whether or not we should allow two people to have anal sex? Let them. I get intense satisfaction just out of the fact that the holier-than-thou will be forced to discuss a subject that?s abhorrent to his religious values.

What irks me however is that nobody is sitting down to discuss a much more important and fundamental issue ? that of legalizing the right to abortion. Nobody?s talking about abortion, because even though Government has had the guts to come forward with a legislation that would depenalize sodomy (so petty a subject when compared to the right to abortion), no such action has been forthcoming on an issue that has the potential to improve the lives of so many mothers and children.

Why, do you think? Because the matter is deemed too sensitive, because Government presumably doesn?t want to offend the religious organizations and I imagine, also because some over-zealous MPs would oppose the move due to their ubiquitous religious beliefs.

What do their religious values have to do with the laws of the Republic, would you ask? Please don?t get me started on this. Better be a coward than cause embarrassment. But at the end of the day, who cares what those dimwits think? Regardless of what Government does or doesn?t do, shouldn?t the Supreme Court take a stand on the issue of abortion?

You will recall that in the United States in 1973, in one of the most controversial and politically significant decisions in its history, the US Supreme court ruled that most laws against abortion violate the constitutional right to privacy.

Of course, the decision caused much upheaval but the point is, a huge battle was won ? that of the right of the individual to dispose of his or her body as he or she thinks fit; that the individual is no longer kept in chains because of a prevalent? albeit subjective ? belief that ?killing babies? would send people to hell. So that?s how I devised my brilliant plan. We find a pregnant woman and we ask the court for ?permission? for her to have an abortion, pretty much the way it happened in the US case Roe.V.Wade. After all, isn?t it up to them to decide what constitutes an infringement on our rights and freedom? Unwittingly pregnant woman, please come forward; you are wanted!