Justice Ishaq Bello of Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court Tuesday in Abuja called for the reform of abortion law in Nigeria on grounds that laws should be pragmatic enough to reflect current realities.

Bello who spoke at the inauguration of the FCT Chapter of the Network of the Bar, Bench and Police (NBB&P) on Reproductive Health (RH) Tuesday however said that such reform should include "very stringent safeguards".

He explained that the essence of very stringent safeguards was to ensure that such reform would not encourage immorality.

Justice Bello said that abortion law as it is represents an ideal situation of pregnancy on grounds that it believes that all women would be impregnated by their husbands or by men they reached an agreement with for such purpose.

He further explained that pregnancies which were results of rape and incest were not envisaged by the abortion law inherited in 1861 from Britain which the colonial masters had reformed more than three times.

Bello said that the law is "unnecessarily [punitive]" in view of the fact that women who became pregnant as a result of rape and incest and who would prefer to terminate such pregnancies are not covered.

He noted that the restrictive nature of the law had led many women who wanted to terminate pregnancies to their early graves because they easily became victims of quacks who killed them in the process of trying to abort.

Bello observed that the law did not permit qualified medical doctors to terminate a pregnancy, except when it threatened the life of the women.

He said that the law could not stand as it is because of the number of women that died from complications of unsafe abortion which stood at 34,000 every year.

Justice Bello said that there was a compelling situation on ground to reform the law, adding that laws should be pragmatic.

He called on members of NBB&P to come with relevant cases so that Judges would have an opportunity to treat such matters on their merit.

Also speaking, the President of National Industrial Court, Justice Babatunde Adejumo said that issues of reproductive health should be brought to the fore.

He said that members of the NBB&P should no longer be bystanders because of the number of deaths arising from complications of unsafe abortion.

However, he said that solutions should be preventive so that incidents of unsafe abortion could be avoided.

Justice Adejumo said that NBB&P has the opportunity to stop avoidable deaths arising from gaps in RH, adding that "now is the time".

NBB&P was established in 2007 to protect and enforce the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights of Women (S&RHR).

It also encourages the prosecution of criminal violation of such rights and provides a platform for the articulation of ideas and exchange of information for judicial engagement in advocacy on S&RHR.

Finally someone is thinking differently,hmmmmmmmmm........