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Abortion in Latin America illegal, risky--but not rare
By Colin McMahon
"SALVADOR, Brazil -- Abortion is mostly illegal in Brazil, but you would not know it from the numbers.
Every year an estimated 1.4 million Brazilian girls and women take the law into their hands, and often put their health at risk, to terminate their pregnancies. This gives Brazil an abortion rate much higher than that of the United States, even though one country allows the procedure and the other all but bans it.
llegal abortion has become a fact of life, and not just in Brazil. Across much of Latin America, even as judges, legislators and activists debate whether abortion laws should be tightened or loosened, millions of women are finding clandestine ways to end their unwanted pregnancies.
For Brazilians such as Marta Leiro, the question is not whether to break the law but how.
There are strong teas and herbal mixes designed to cause miscarriage. There are potent prescription medicines, purchased illegally but easily found.
There are private clinics with willing, if expensive, doctors. And then, if absolutely necessary, there is someone around the corner, around some corner in most Brazilian communities, who will put the girl or woman up on a table and end her pregnancy.
"My first choice was a safe abortion, an abortion done in a special clinic," said Leiro, a 38-year-old community activist and mother of two who was jobless when she became pregnant in September 2004.
"But I was in no condition to pay," she said. "And so I chose this other method, the one that's used the most. And I did it while terrified of dying."
Leiro lives in Salvador, the biggest city in the poorest region of Brazil, and a place believed to have one of the highest abortion rates in the country.
Though no official figures exist, a recent survey indicated that 1 in 5 women under age 20 in Salvador has had an abortion.
Internationally, Brazil's estimated national abortion rate puts it above the United States, which is in the middle of the pack, but below the world leaders in abortion, which are dominated by the countries of the former Soviet Union and their former allies in Eastern Europe.
The vast majority of Brazil's abortions are illegal, as they are almost everywhere in Latin America except Cuba.
Abortion-rights activists are trying to change that, with advertising campaigns, lobbying efforts and court challenges from Mexico City down to Santiago, Chile. They held events marking Latin American and Caribbean Day for the Decriminalization of Abortion on Sept. 28, part of a strategy to focus on abortion as a leading cause of maternal death, especially for young and poor women.
In an article to be released Wednesday in the medical journal The Lancet, a group of public health experts and obstetricians estimates that worldwide about eight women die every hour from complications of unsafe abortion.
Abortion-rights activists argue that the laws fail to stop abortion: The United Nations estimates the number of abortions at 4 million a year across Latin America, despite some of the severest restrictions in the world."
continued... link
Jeesh, and here I thought you anti-choicers were claiming that criminalizing abortion would "protect the lives" of fetuses by forcing unwilling females to gestate them to term.
Looks like all it does in reality, however, is unjustly persecute and oppress females, and endanger their lives.
But you guys have always known that, haven't you?
And you really don't care all that much if women continue to exercise reproductive choice, just as long as they are properly chastened, in your pompous opinion, for their rebellious attempts to control their own bodily functions... either by prison sentences, mutilation or death.
It's not really abortion you're against, it's safe abortion.
Which is why I will not refer to you as "pro life".
By Colin McMahon
"SALVADOR, Brazil -- Abortion is mostly illegal in Brazil, but you would not know it from the numbers.
Every year an estimated 1.4 million Brazilian girls and women take the law into their hands, and often put their health at risk, to terminate their pregnancies. This gives Brazil an abortion rate much higher than that of the United States, even though one country allows the procedure and the other all but bans it.
llegal abortion has become a fact of life, and not just in Brazil. Across much of Latin America, even as judges, legislators and activists debate whether abortion laws should be tightened or loosened, millions of women are finding clandestine ways to end their unwanted pregnancies.
For Brazilians such as Marta Leiro, the question is not whether to break the law but how.
There are strong teas and herbal mixes designed to cause miscarriage. There are potent prescription medicines, purchased illegally but easily found.
There are private clinics with willing, if expensive, doctors. And then, if absolutely necessary, there is someone around the corner, around some corner in most Brazilian communities, who will put the girl or woman up on a table and end her pregnancy.
"My first choice was a safe abortion, an abortion done in a special clinic," said Leiro, a 38-year-old community activist and mother of two who was jobless when she became pregnant in September 2004.
"But I was in no condition to pay," she said. "And so I chose this other method, the one that's used the most. And I did it while terrified of dying."
Leiro lives in Salvador, the biggest city in the poorest region of Brazil, and a place believed to have one of the highest abortion rates in the country.
Though no official figures exist, a recent survey indicated that 1 in 5 women under age 20 in Salvador has had an abortion.
Internationally, Brazil's estimated national abortion rate puts it above the United States, which is in the middle of the pack, but below the world leaders in abortion, which are dominated by the countries of the former Soviet Union and their former allies in Eastern Europe.
The vast majority of Brazil's abortions are illegal, as they are almost everywhere in Latin America except Cuba.
Abortion-rights activists are trying to change that, with advertising campaigns, lobbying efforts and court challenges from Mexico City down to Santiago, Chile. They held events marking Latin American and Caribbean Day for the Decriminalization of Abortion on Sept. 28, part of a strategy to focus on abortion as a leading cause of maternal death, especially for young and poor women.
In an article to be released Wednesday in the medical journal The Lancet, a group of public health experts and obstetricians estimates that worldwide about eight women die every hour from complications of unsafe abortion.
Abortion-rights activists argue that the laws fail to stop abortion: The United Nations estimates the number of abortions at 4 million a year across Latin America, despite some of the severest restrictions in the world."
continued... link
Jeesh, and here I thought you anti-choicers were claiming that criminalizing abortion would "protect the lives" of fetuses by forcing unwilling females to gestate them to term.
Looks like all it does in reality, however, is unjustly persecute and oppress females, and endanger their lives.
But you guys have always known that, haven't you?
And you really don't care all that much if women continue to exercise reproductive choice, just as long as they are properly chastened, in your pompous opinion, for their rebellious attempts to control their own bodily functions... either by prison sentences, mutilation or death.
It's not really abortion you're against, it's safe abortion.
Which is why I will not refer to you as "pro life".
