It is one of the disturbing realities, the cases of childlessness, abortion, abandoned babies and unplanned multiple births.

In a society where women are hounded for staying unmarried at a certain age, and also for not having their own biological children, the loneliness alone breaks hearts and makes some women feel unfit for their “raison d’etre”.

Miserable in their thoughts and silent in their hearts, with a sense of failure, some such women have been said to have entertained all kinds of anxieties, leading some to depression.

It can be an emotional situation for childless couples, especially the women.  In their depressed state, some are even driven to fake pregnancy.

I once heard of a case where a married childless lady who had faked pregnancy for months left home at her imagined advanced stage of pregnancy, only to return weeks later with a bouncy new baby she claimed she had delivered. 

Unfortunately, there are a few more similar stories around of feigned pregnancies as a reaction to the pressures society puts on women of their kind.  There is even the belief that there is something like a trade in babies going on, where childless women desperately in need of babies go to “buy” newborn babies on pre-arranged terms.

For such women, they have reached a stage where it may not matter where the baby is coming from.  Theirs is to hold a newborn they can call their own, stolen or paid for.

Baby stealing

The recent alleged case of baby stealing at the Mamprobi hospital in Accra, which made headlines in the media, is a case in point. A case where a married young lady could disguise herself, dressed as a nurse and walk into the hospital’s maternity ward to steal a four-day-old baby should be fresh in one’s mind. 

The alleged baby theft occurred in broad daylight and became fodder for social media. The live picture and video captures ultimately helped populate the news, heightening the search for the culprit.

The national uproar was so high that the Minister of Health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, stepped in to direct a greater enforcement of security identification protocols at all health facilities across the country to safeguard patients, staff and the general public.

There have been examples in the past of stolen babies from health facilities. These were times when there was no social media, and some of the missing babies were never found, and the parents had to live with that pain for the rest of their lives.

The case of having a baby at all costs or having one but not wanting it makes reproductive life look like a kaleidoscope. The controversies and ironies around wanting but not having, and getting but not wanting, are so difficult to comprehend. 

While on the one side, some are planning to go and steal or buy newborn babies to take home, others may be planning to end their pregnancies by abortion or go ahead, have them and abandon the babies because they do not want them.

Interestingly, I came across a publication in the Daily Graphic dated Wednesday, May 22, 1968.  The story, which was culled from the Ghana News Agency (GNA), was titled, “No fatherless child for me – Accused”. 

According to the story, a young lady who was accused of causing an abortion by an Accra High Court explained at the court hearing that she did not want a fatherless child. She consequently pleaded guilty to the charge, explaining that the man who got her in the family way refused to accept responsibility.

The court fined her GH¢200, or, in default, sent her to prison for six months.  Her punishment went further with a bond of GH¢100 to be of good behaviour for two years or three months imprisonment in default, because according to the trial judge, she did not only kill a human being, she also sinned against God, her person and the community in which she lived. 

Fifty-eight years on, even though abortion is still illegal except under certain situations, including rape, defilement or incest, it is still happening while some are genuinely in want of babies. 

Multiple births

The complication in the rapidly changing scenes is the case where couples who have been blessed with multiples of babies, triplets, quadruplets or even more, come out in the open to ask for public help because they were only planning for one birth. 

Just a couple of weeks ago, on the radio, a father in a village in the Central Region called for help caring for quadruplets his wife had had, in addition to their three other children. 

The point being raised here is that while some want and would go to great lengths, even if it meant stealing a baby they can call their own, others have and they do not want or cannot afford to care for them.

Such is the irony of life, presenting a kaleidoscope in the arena of wanting a baby, not wanting and having, but cannot cope syndrome that women continue to live with in our society.

To want or not to want?  That is the question.

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The writer can be contacted via email at vickywirekoandoh@yahoo.com