Gaitho's article about Kenya becoming landlocked is far-fetched and imagines the worst.

a)It is based on the simple assumption that rejecting this draft is the same as rejecting the kadhi's courts.If No wins, it means we go back to the current situation and begin another constitutional process that recognises the issue as a contentious issue and have it renegotiated. If it could be negotiated by the colonists in the 60s, it can be renegotiated by the present Kenyan generation. I suspect the CoE's position was that it is too contentious- read sensitive- to be negotiated, my thinking being that this is based on fear rather than reason. I imagine that it can only get more contentious in future- project 50 years from now- there will probably be more atheists who will not understand why they would have to fund a religious outfit and will think the generation of 2010 had got it wrong to imagine the courts are a judicial as opposed to a religious outfit.

b) Macharia Gaitho comments are based on the assumption that it will be in the interest of the coast region to break away from mainland Kenya and join... was it Tanzania? I imagine it is a decision the coast region would not make lightly and would essentially be based on the strategic interests especially seeing we are integrating as East Africans. Do we, for instance, think we are doing Uganda, a landlocked country, a favour by providing a transit point for their goods? Wasn't there a thread in Wazua on our loss of deal for rail connection to Juba? I think we should imagine and craft a world of tolerance and strategic interests rather than a '.. its this or else...' world

c) Does someone have the current demographic figures for the 10 mile coastal strip? I guess the bigger number of consumers of kadhi courts are in mainland as opposed to coast and that the 10 mile coastal strip is now in terms of population quite different from the situation in the 60s. A modern solution is called to the obviously contentious issue.

Poundfoolish, which Church is arguing about a muslim, sharia law takeover?- certainly not the catholics, not the NCCK. The argument basically about treating all religions equally and keeping religion and state separate are not small issues. They are real and present. I have no time for the fundamentalist view of a muslim take over, far-fetched or not, because it is based on fear rather than reason.

As to the situation at the coast, land and all.. whoever owns the land is thinking in the present about the strategic interest in belonging to a country called Kenya and I doubt his chief consideration will be whether Kadhi's courts ARE ENTRENCHED IN THE CONSTITUTION AND FUNDED BY THE STATE because that is the present issue.

"In reality, with medical advances of technology, such cases of abortion needed to save the mother’s life hardly ever occur. Indeed, numerous authorities have affirmed that with today’s medicine, no unborn child ever need be killed for the mother to survive."


Brewer which country is this writer taking about?....
Remember I said earlier we do not have adequate doctors ...we have shortage of Medicine in Public hospitals....In February 2010...Kenyatta hospital didnt have syringes...(sindanos)....which technology is the writer talking about that is widely in Kenya to avoid the daily occurances of miscarriages .....

The article is just full of lies and very unconvincing

We would help to talk about the draft, where the contention is simple and the writer cannot be clearer:

THE DRAFT EXTENDS ABORTION WAY BEYOND THE "THREAT TO LIFE OF MOTHER"

Any other argument is, in my view, diversionary from the issue and the clear reading of the draft.

Honestly i think Njoki Ndung'u had something to do with the wordings on that abortion clause...?

its a blank cheque.. and just as it is raising issues now it will raise issues later..
but the law is left in its interpretation..

but im still voting yes.. as of now

Poundfoolish, your frankness is disarming. You share the views of many who acknowledge that the clause is bad, but 'DAMN IT, WE NEED A NEW CONSTITUTION!' Others further say, its bad but we will change it later. Quite legitimate positions, I belief.

Give a thought to those who believe the issue touches the core of humanity: LIFE, cannot get it wrong and move on with others; and the provisions in the draft are too wide as to allow abortion by demand; that once passed altering the constitution will be an almost impossible exercise.

Fundaah, I am aware we are making the constitution, the fundamental law, that supersedes any other law, including the penal code. Once enacted all law must bow to it, however tall it may be, and the situation here is we have a constitution that is lower in standards and values than the penal code and you can imagine the penal code bending to it until it breaks its back. We are making the constitution, aren't we?