Student leaders join KZN pro-life march

University of KZN (Westville campus) Student Representative Council (SRC) leaders participated for the first time in the annual NAL March against abortion at Umhlanga KZN on Sunday, October 6.

The SRC leaders and 4th year students who joined other pro-lifers in the march despite strong winds and sporadic showers are members of the  Student Christian Fellowship (SCF) which gained an unprecedented strong presence on the SRC  this year.

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SCF Leadership Forum Chairperson, Philani Phewa said the fellowship’s vision is to represent all students, regardless of religion, influencing them with the principles of the Kingdom of God. It was based on this vision that the SRC was represented for the first time at the NAL march, standing up against the crime of abortion, he said in an interview with Duschania Pillay, newly appointed Durban correspondent for the TBN current affairs programme, Watchmen on the Wall and a key organiser of the march. Phewa did not take part in the event himself.

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SRC Secretary- General and law student, Eketsang Diaho said in an interview that he and Malusi Mkhize, SRC International and Marketing Officer and an economics student, heard about the march and realised it was a call for everyone to support it and do something constructive for the well-being of South African’s.

“We believe we should gather as one voice to speak out against such issues,” he said.

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Diaho stressed that after the march they would continue to influence and challenge in the area of abortion and try to bring about change in the law.

He said: “Laws such as the legalisation of abortion destroy us, whether we are aware of it or not. How can a 20 year old, or younger, be allowed to go and abort without any questions asked; and without the knowledge of the parent who is responsible for the child?” 

Asked to comment on the recent Constitutional Court ruling decriminalising teenage sex in a society where sex before marriage leads to unwanted pregnancies and abortions, he said he believes organisations and businesses, such as Planned Parenthood, are driving their ‘product’ at the expense of the lives of people.

He said the SRC wants laws which regard all people, including the unborn, as special gifts. Government rule is contradicting Biblical principles and compromising lives, thereby depressing the economy further, he said.

Mkhize said he supported a memorandum that was signed at the gathering before the march started. The memorandum was given to the Deputy President of the ACDP, who was wearing a T-shirt with the slogan “Let’s Fix This”, to hand over to government requesting a change in the law in terms of abortion.

Diaho and Mkhize said they believe that peopleof all religions should stand united against abortion.

Mkhize said schools should educate children and youth about abortion — starting with primary schools.

Three teenagers at the march, Ashley Veerasamy, Nicolen Naidoo and Delon Pillay, stated that they were Christians from Christian homes, but when questioned about pre-marital sex and abortion, were a bit hesitant and undecided as to what they would do in the face of an unwanted pregnancy. The reasons they gave were that ‘my parents would kill me, or throw me out of the house and disown me if I got a girlfriend pregnant’, so they would ‘consider’ an abortion even though it was murder. Clearly fear of parent’s response is an avenue that needs to be looked into in the educating process!

Errol Naidoo, founder of  both the Family Policy Institute (FPI) and Watchmen on the Wall (WOW), led a team covering the march for WOW which is aired weekly on TBN – DStv channel 341 on Tuesday at 8pm and repeated on Sunday at 7pm.  Pillay said that the atmosphere at the march was ‘electric’ even with bad weather.