Criminalizing Abortion: A Crime Against Women
Rayas, Lucía
Women have abortions, whether it is legal or not. The question, then, is not whether we agree or disagree with abortion, but whether we choose life or death for women. Maintaining the punitive...
...According to one comparative study, Chile had the highest abortion rates in Latin America, with six abortions for every ten live births...
...Yet those of "good conscience" remain blind to the underlying problems surrounding ille- gal abortion: high rates of maternal mortality, poverty, tIu e absenIce of sexual education, and insufficient information about and availability of contraception...
...Although today there are fewer legal cases against women who rate is 39 undergo abortions and against abor- 100,000 li tion practitioners, the fear of accusation often discourages women from compared seeking medical care even when they 220 per suffer severe complications...
...The struggle to get what at the time seemed like an impossible amount of money, plus the anxiety caused by our absolute ignorance about the procedure, kept us up all night until the morning appointment...
...The Church hierarchy and its conservative allies attacked the initiative with such vehemence that the reforms were repealed...
...In Chile, the law that criminalized therapeutic abortion was passed in 1989, in the last weeks of the Pinochet dictatorship...
...colony, all the rules and regulations regarding abortion on the island come VOL XXXI, No 4 JAN/FEB 1998 25REPORT ON SEXUAL POLITICS from the United States...
...After the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision by the U.S...
...Yamila Azize-Vargas and Luis A. Aviles, "Abortion in Puerto Rico...
...One afternoon during my high school years in Mexico City, my best friend confessed to me in a panicky voice that she had not had her period for a couple of months...
...Legislation is in place to appease the "good consciences" of those who need to feel they live in a conservative, Church-abiding country...
...Jaime Guzmin, a lawyer and Opus Dei affiliate who authored the 1980 Constitution, spearheaded the campaign to make abortion completely illegal before the return to democracy...
...Source: Adapted from Yamila Azize-Vargas and Luis A. Avilc in Puerto Rico: The Limits of Colonial Legality " in Abortion Business, Reproductive Health Matters Series, No, 9 (May 1. The situation is quite different in Cuba, where abortion was legalized in 1979 after a study demonstrated that illegal abortion was the primary cause of death of women between the ages of 15 and 44.18 For nearly 20 years, the legal, religious and political restrictions that surround abortion in other Latin American countries have not existed in Cuba...
...Women are men's property and the bearers of their future heirs-women as the wombs of the nation, for better or for worse...
...This marks a dramatic reversal in the move toward liberalization marked by Guyana's 1995 decision to make abortion available on demand, and by growing debate on abortion elsewhere in Latin America...
...Abortion, in effect, has become a de facto means of birth control, largely because contraceptive devices are in short supply due to the U.S...
...With or without fundamentalist ideologies or restrictive laws, millions of Latin American women undergo back-alley abortions, per- formed under the worst circumstances by people who benefit financially by trading in the abortion black mar- ket...
...1 (March 1995), p. 33...
...A safe first trimester abortion in Mexico, for example, ranges from the equivalent of $238 to $714-an amount payable only by a few privileged women...
...6 Abortion, therefore, is not only an issue of women's reproductive rights...
...As a result, the rate of contraceptive knowledge and use among Puerto Rican women has been higher than their Latin American and Caribbean counterparts...
...In three national surveys carried out by the Information Group for Reproductive Choice (GIRE), a nongovernmental organization based in Mexico City, over 80% of Mexicans said that they believed the decision to terminate a pregnancy or to carry it to term is exclusively that of the pregnant woman or of the woman and her partner, and that neither the Church nor the state should have a say in the matter.' 3 Cultural critic Carlos Monsivdis once said that abortion was so widely accepted in Mexico that in effect, it was morally decriminalized...
...Some countries allow for abortion if the fetus is deformed, and a few countries allow it in cases of extreme economic hardship...
...The legislation that on paper permits abortion under specific circumstances, however, does not necessarily provide a real framework for it to take place...
...The doctor said he would do the procedure, but only after lecturing my friend about her irresponsibility and lack of self-respect...
...21, No...
...And there will, of course, continue to be unwanted or planned pregnancies as long as there is lack of access to information and sex education, insufficient or complete absence of contraceptive methods, and contraceptive methods that are not 100% reliable...
...Rhonda Copelon, "From Privacy to Autonomy: The Conditions for Sexual and Reproductive Freeedom," in Gerber Fried, ed., From Abortion to Reproductive Freedom...
...Source: Elaborated by author based on the penal codes of corresponding Latin American and Caribbean countries...
...When regulated and performed by trained physicians, abortion is a very safe procedure...
...Given that Puerto Rico is a U.S...
...9 In Chile, 36% of maternal deaths are due to illegal or clandestine abortions, making this the In C first cause of maternal death in this country.'o where During the Pinochet regime, medical personnel were encouraged to denounce women who sought treat- on dem ment after botched abortions as well as those who performed the proce- materna dure...
...Lisa C. Remez, "Confronting the reality of abortion in Latin America," International Family Planning Perspectives, Vol...
...Behind every decision to interrupt a pregnancy, there is pain, anguish and serious considerations...
...Nor is there any attempt to provide public information to make people aware of their right to legal abortion under certain circumstances...
...In most of these countries, however, there are certain extenuating circumstances under which a woman may be legally permitted an abortion...
...I didn't hear from her for months, after all communication between us was forbidden by her outraged parents...
...Luis de la Barreda Sol6rzano, El delito de aborto, una careta de buena conciencia (Mexico City: National Institute of Criminal Studies, 1991...
...2 0 The contrasting cases of Puerto Rico and Cuba suggest that women's autonomy and sexual freedom require changes in society that go beyond legal norms...
...In 1988, there were 39 maternal deaths per every 100,000 live births in Cuba, compared with averages of 160 and 220 per 100,000 in Central and South America, respectively...
...She was seventeen years old...
...2. The Alan Guttmacher Institute, Aborto clandestino: Una realidad latinoamericana (New York: The Alan Guttmacher Institute, 1994...
...She lost her uterus in the process...
...We were to leave immediately and never come back...
...currently in effect means choosing death...
...9 (May 1997), p. 29...
...Between 50 and 60% of women who try to induce abortion themselves or with the assistance of non-medical personnel experience complications...
...He also made it clear that he was putting himself on the line for her, and that it would cost her...
...9 (May 1997), p. 56...
...We share a history of conquest by conversion...
...This is clearly the case in Mexico, where abortion is permitted in certain states under specific conditions...
...Abortion is legal in all 32 Mexican states in the case of rape, and in 29 states to save the life of the mother...
...Supreme Court, abortion became legal in Puerto Rico via jure ex colonia (legislation due to colonial status).14 Yet this seems to have created a situation in which abortion is not widely accepted as a right, since it was not the result of local demands but was imposed from above...
...In Latin America, the Catholic Church has played a particularly insidious role in defining and enforcing ideologies of womanhood.' Wherever these ideologies exist, women-and men-are bound to feel the restrictions that these invisible chains place on us all...
...20 "It is essential to recognize the inextrica45 ble interrelationship between reproductive and sexual decision making," says feminist scholar Rhonda Copelon, "and the broader demand for equality...
...In most countries, women seeking abortion under such provisions have to take their cases to medical committees which may take so long reviewing each case that by the time they reach a conclusion, the pregnancy may be too advanced...
...In 1982, 69% of women living with their partners used some form of contraception...
...Whenever the topic of abortion is discussed openly, the Catholic Church hierarchy and groups similar to the U.S...
...This was the case in the state of Chiapas in 1990, when the legislature proposed to reform the state's penal code to legalize abortion...
...2 2 Making abortion safe and legal is an inte16 gral part of this process...
...VOL XXXI, No 4 JANIFEB 1998 3. The Alan Guttmacher Institute, Aborto clandestino, p. 17...
...interruption of unwanted or unplanned pregnancies is among the first causes of maternal mortality and morbidity in the region...
...This is especially the case for poor women, who often lack access to family-planning services...
...Women who seek pleasure are seen as evil, and those who do not opt for motherhood are selfish and unworthy...
...The result is that Cuba has a very low rate of maternal mortality compared to its Latin American and Caribbean neighbors...
...Despite this liberal attitude toward abortion among the population, the debate on reproductive rights in Mexico has been consistently stymied by conservative groups and sectors of the Catholic Church...
...Most Latin American and Caribbean countries are Catholic, almost by definition...
...Again, the island's colonial history can probably best explain this...
...Statistics from Susana Checa and Marta Rosenberg, Aborto Hospitalizado...
...Lisa C. Remez, "Confronting the reality of abortion in Latin America...
...Most Latin American and Caribbean countries penalize abortion, punishing both the woman and the person who performs the procedure...
...Rather, it creates larger problems of public health and needlessly puts at risk the lives and health of women-especially poor women-who feel the need to end an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy...
...As I mulled over the episode many times afterward, I often found myself asking why...
...No one wants abortions to continue to exist, but prohibiting them does not resolve the situation...
...There are an estimated half a million abortions in Mexico every year, and one in every four results in medical complications.12 Official :uba, abortion ailable rand, the I mortality deaths per ve birthsto 160 and 100,000 tral and America, ctively...
...Or, the answer may be negative...
...Legalizing abortion does not mean, of course, that women will be forced to have abortions, as some conservatives have argued...
...In 1997, however, both Colombia and El Salvador changed their penal codes in order to prohibit abortion under any circumstance...
...n sharp contrast to Chile and Mexico stand Puerto Rico and Cuba, two of the three countries in the region where abortion is legally available to women on demand...
...respe Unlike Chile, most Latin American respe countries criminalize abortion but permit it under extenuating circumstances...
...A handful of states allow abortion if fetal deformation is detected or after a woman is forcibly subjected to artificial insemination, and one state allows it for economic reasons if the woman has at least three children...
...2. The abortion ratio is the number of abortions per 100 (excluding involuntary miscarriages and stillbirths...
...Even for the most liberal Latin Americans, abortion brings up feelings of guilt, a certain sense of indecency, and deep sorrow...
...Lidia Casas-Becerra, Mujeres procesadas por aborto (Santiago de Chile: Foro Abierto de Salud y Derechos Reproductivos, 1996...
...Childbirth by Choice Trust, Abortion in Law History and Religion...
...No woman has an abortion because it is fun or pleasant...
...Come back tomorrow," he said, "and bring the money...
...Yamila Azize-Vargas and Luis Avilds calls this "legal clandestinity," and argue that this plays a powerful role in inhibiting women who desire to end pregnancies from seeking abortion services because it shrouds the process with feelings of guilt and illegality...
...Rather, the s, "Abortion option is choosing life or death for : Unfinished women...
...An hour after she went into the consultation room, the doctor came out, furiously shouting that her pregnancy was too advanced and that he could do nothing more...
...It only means that the opinions of a few will not be imposed upon others, as is presently the case...
...Yet in practice, anti-abortion laws are not enforced in many countries in the region...
...Maintaining the punitive laws 997...
...Yamila Azize-Vargas and Luis A. Aviles, "Abortion in Puerto Rico," p. 59...
...Angela Davis, "Racism, Birth Control and Reproductive Rights," in Gerber Fried, ed., From Abortion to Reproductive Freedom...
...economic blockade...
...5 Many obstacles remain, moreover, to women's access to safe abortions in Puerto Rico...
...B. Viel, "The Risk of Unwanted Pregnancy: A Latin American Perspective," IPPF Medical Bulletin (February 1989...
...Yamila Azize-Vargas, "La realidad del aborto en Puerto Rico: Investigar para educar," Paper presented at the Meeting of Researchers on Induced Abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean at the External University of Colombia (Santaf6 de Bogota, 1994), p. 97...
...8. Lidia Casas-Becerra, "Women Prosecuted and Imprisoned for Abortion in Chile," p. 30...
...Criminalizing abortion, on the other hand, forces women to undergo unregulated and risky procedures that put their lives and their future reproductive health at risk...
...It was a somber place...
...1 9 But abortion rates are markedly high, at 58 abortions per 1,000 women...
...17 Table 2 Case Studies: Abortion Rates and Ratios Abortion rate' Ab Countries in which abortion is available on demand Puerto Rico 22 Cuba 58 Countries in which abortion is restricted by law Mexico 23 Chile 45 1. The abortion rate is the number of legal abortions per 1 of childbearing age (15-44 years...
...In practice, however, these written regulations add up to no regulations, since they do not outline the procedures women in these circumstances can follow to obtain legal abortions...
...4 Keeping abortion illegal is an extremely costly way of allocating scarce medical resources...
...In Latin America, full compliance with reproductive rights and with the rights of women would require access to safe and voluntary abortion so that all women may choose what they do with their own bodies...
...Maternal morbidity, caused by abortion complications such as perforated uteruses or infection of the reproductive tract, forces women to seek emergency medical attention at public health facilities...
...Guzmin, who was killed in 1991, allegedly by the Manuel Rodrfguez 24 NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS Table 1REPORT ON SEXUAL POLITICS Patriotic Front (FPMR), reportedly said that individuals faced with martyrdom or moral fault should choose the former.' Of course, under the rulings Guzmdn helped pass, all possible "martyrs" are women...
...Pro-Life Movement jump into the fray with arguments that exclude women and their rights...
...For example, official rules restrict the public advertisement of abortion services...
...Forty percent of all pregnancies in Mexico are unwanted, and 17% of these are terminated...
...5 The same survey showed that 37% of the total budget for gynecological services is spent on treating abortion complications, representing 4.5% of the global budget of these hospitals...
...They are reflected in most of our legislation and are protected by a patriarchal state...
...VOL XXXI, No 4 JAN/FEB 1998 0 23REPORT ON SEXUAL POLITICS Abortion Legislation in Latin America Countries in which abortion is available on demand Cuba' Guyana Puerto Rico Countries in which abortion is illegal except in the following circumstances For social and socio-economic reasons Barbados Belize To preserve woman's health and in case of fetal deformation Argentina 2 Bahamas Bolivia 2 Costa Rica 2 Grenada 2 Jamaica Panama Peru Trinidad and Tobago Uruguay 2 To save woman's life Brazil Dominican Republic Ecuador Guatemala Haiti Honduras Mexico Nicaragua Paraguay Surinam Venezuela In case of rape and incest Bolivia Brazil Ecuador Mexico Countries in which abortion is totally forbidden Chile Colombia El Salvador 1. During the first ten weeks of pregnancy...
...Despite its illegality, an estimated 160,000 to 300,000 Chilean women undergo abortions each year...
...3 The A pregnant woman in Havana, Cuba looks at a family-planning poster Graffiti on a wall in Chiapas, Mexico reads, "freely chosen motherhood...
...Information Group for Reproductive Choice (GIRE), Encuesta de opinion sobre el aborto (Mexico City, 1994...
...The other countries included in the surveyBrazil, Colombia, Peru and the Dominican Republichad an average of four abortions every ten live births, with the exception of Mexico, which averaged two abortions every ten live births...
...We got the name of an abortion practitioner, a doctor, and drove to his office...
...6 At the same time, however, there is a markedly low incidence of abortion in Puerto Rico...
...Una cuestibn de derechos reproductivos, un problema de salud pOblica (Buenos Aires: Ediciones El cielo por asalto, 1996...
...Minds and hearts were won, however forcibly, and made to abide by a stringent set of values that equate woman with mother-a saintly, devoted mother whose sexuality is forever linked to reproduction...
...In two out of three cases, treatment involved abortion complications...
...A survey of several hospitals in Buenos Aires revealed that women facing abortion complications remain hospitalized an average of 7.4 days, making the cost of a botched abortion nine times that of a normal birth and 4.5 times that of a cesarean section...
...But the differences in the origin of the laws legalizing abortion in both countries mean that abortion takes on very different meanings in each society...
...21...
...7. Lidia Casas-Becerra, "Women Prosecuted and Imprisoned for Abortion in Chile," in Abortion: Unfinished Business, Reproductive Health Matters Series, No...
...Such changes will come about only as a result of greater awareness about the real public health problems that result from criminalizing abortion and an understanding that a ion raio key aspect of women's emancipation is equal access to safe contraceptive methods as well as abortion when necessary.21 To be denied control over reproduction or sexuality is to be denied full personhood...
...As Luis de la 35 Barreda, president of Mexico's Human Rights Commission says: "The question ,000 women is not whether we agree or disagree with abortion, because whether or not it is pregnancies legal, women have abortions, as statistics everywhere demonstrate...
...6. Susana Checa and Marta Rosenberg, Aborto Hospitalizado...
...The Alan Guttmacher Institute, Aborto clandestino...
...4. Childbirth by Choice Trust, Abortion in Law, History and Religion (Toronto: Childbirth by Choice Trust, 1995), p. 39...
...In fact, Cuban abortion law has sought to protect women, especially by assuring them equal access to a safe and affordable procedure...
...2 Health professionals, public officials and the women's movement have long pointed out the adverse consequences of illegal abortion...
...23 Criminalizing Abortion: A Crime Against Women 1. Jacqui Alexander, "Mobilizing against the State and International 'Aid' Agencies: 'Third World' Women Define Reproductive Freedom," in Marlene Gerber Fried, ed., From Abortion to Reproductive Freedom: Transforming a Movement (Boston: South End Press, 1990...
...Abortion during the first-trimester is illegal, for example, if the abortion is performed against the will of the woman, when it is performed by untrained personnel who cannot guarantee the safety of the procedure, when it is done for profit, and when it is done outside official health institutions...
...Yamila Azize-Vargas and Luis A. Avilfs, "Abortion in Puerto Rico: The Limits of Colonial Leglislation," in Abortion: Unfinished Business, Reprodutive Health Matters Series, No...
...They pulled her out of school and sent her to live with relatives in New Jersey, where she was able to have the procedure...
...In 1990, four million abortions were performed in Latin America, according to the New York-based Alan Guttmacher Institute...
...In cases of unwanted pregnancies, such women can rarely afford to pay the private physicians who could ensure a safe procedure, and so expose themselves to potentially unhygienic, risky abortions...
...figures report abortion as the fourth cause of maternal mortality in the country...
...8 [See Table 2.] According to Ministry of Health statistics, in 1990, 44,500 women obtained abortion-related medical care...
...Another element that makes abortion law inadequate is that very few people-the general public as well as medical personnel-know that there are extenuating circumstances that permit the interruption of pregnancy...
...He also championed a constitutional amendment establishing the right to life, including the protection of the life of the unborn, which effectively blocks all future attempts to decriminalize abortion or pass any other legislation that may provide access to this reproductive right...
...Maintaining the punitive laws currently in effect means choosing death...
...See Table 1.] In most countries, for example, an abortion may be obtained when a woman's life or health are in danger...
...In Uruguay, for example, the Broad Front, a coalition of left-wing parties, recently revived a project to decriminalize abortion, while in Peru, the newly created National Reproductive Health Program has recognized abortion as a public health problem...
...My friend went home...
...Lucia Rayas is a sociologist and the Information Coordinator of the Information Group for Reproductive Choice (GIRE), an NGO based in Mexico City She would like to thank Rosario Taracena, Angeles Garcia, Martha Judrez, Renate and George Gugelberger Jeff House and Sharon Bissel for their for help with this article...
...Approximately 800,000 Latin American women are admitted to hospitals every year due to such complications...
...5. See the Alan Guttmacher Institute, Aborto clandestino...
...9. Lidia Casas-Becerra, "Women Prosecuted and Imprisoned for Abortion in Chile," p. 30...
...It also involves problems of public health, social justice and ethics...
...Needless to say, this mostly affects the poorest in Cen Chilean women, who cannot afford the high costs of a safe procedure that South poses no risk to their health...
...More astonishing is the fact that 49% of Puerto Rican women of childbearing age (1549) have been sterilized-the legacy of U.S.-funded sterilization campaigns...
...Population-control programs have been implemented in Puerto Rico since 1937, long before they existed in any other Latin American or Caribbean country...
...2. Designates countries in which abortion is allowed only to preserve a woman's health...
...The feelings of guilt and indecency that surround abortion arise because the very fact of pregnancy attests to having exercised sexuality-a tremendous affront to institutions like the state, law and religion which seek to control women's sexual lives...
...With the exception of Cuba, Guyana and Puerto Rico, where abortion is available on demand, abortion is legally penalized in Latin America and the Caribbean...
...Now, years later, many women have come to understand that the right to have an abortion is a necessary condition for women's sexual freedom...
...Several centuries later these basic tenets still prevail...
...Until recently, only Chile prohibited abortion completely, even when the life of the woman is at risk...
Vol. 31 • January 1998 • No. 4
