Every September 28 since 1990, a diversity of organizations gather up for one cause: to drive global actions in favor of the legalization of abortion in the world. The reason is between 22 and 44 thousand women die per year due to preventable complications by unsafe abortion. 40% of them never get to be assisted.
By Maria Paula Hougton.
This time, from the IWL-FI, in the frame of September 28, global action day on decriminalization of abortion, we make an international campaign to support the fair struggle of Salvadorian women, subjected to one of the most restrictive legislations of the world, which puts their lives at risk daily. Some time it gain difussion the case of Beatriz, forced to give birth to a baby without brain, and recently we knew the case of a woman who died of cancer with the fetus inside her because of the refusal to abort. 14 women imprisoned for comitting the “crime” of abortion, even when they suffered spontaneous abortion.
In Argentina, where the abortion is free of punishment since 1927, women’s rights were suspended during decades, and now they are implemented inequaly, depending on the province abortion takes place. The professionals had to appeal to the right of information to explain a woman how to perform a safe abortion with pills at home; and although we defend that right of information, what should happen is the State provides the service. This year, the struggle was for the freedom of women who were imprisoned by arriving to public hospitals with interrupted abortions; the concrete struggle was for Freedom for Belén, a young girl from Tucumán [Argentine province] sentenced to 8 years of prison. Thanks to the mobilization, she has been released.
A picture of the world
Over the last decade, the abortion decreased among the imperialist countries and increased among the semi-coloinal countries, due to health and budget cuts, usually accompanied by attacks and retreats in the laws that protect women. The economic crisis usually come with increasement of male-chauvinist ideologies, aiming to send women back home when the labour market is uncapable of absorbing the female workforce offert. Among imperialist countries that had been hit by the crisis, like the Spanish State, there were also attempts to dismantle rights, but those attempts have been defeated by the mobiliaztion.
Each year, there are 56 million abortions over the world; 88% of induced abortions take place in poor countries; the abortion rates are 37 and 27 over 1000, respectively.
Between 2010 and 2014, the highest rate corresponds to the Caribbean, with 65/1000, and in South America, with 47/1000. The lowest rates were in North America, with 17/1000, and West and North Europe, both with 18/1000.
East Europe went down from 88 to 42 over 1000, being still really high. In Africa, it was of 34/1000. All Asian sub-regions have an average rate of 36/1000.
The highest rate is among married women, with 36/1000, against 25/1000 for single women.
Those who claim to defend life are only blinding women lives.
The highly restrictive abortion laws are not associated to lower abortion rates. The rate is of 37/1000 abortion of women in reproductive age in those countries were abortion is forbidden or can only be done to save the woman life, in comparison with 34/1000 were the abortion is available by demand. The difference might not be significant, but it is in favor of the decriminalization.
On the contrary, the restrictive laws force unsafe procedures that lead to complications and death that can be avoided by providing free services.
Another important percentage of unsafe abortions take place in countries were abortion is decriminalized, but the service is not provided or is provided insufficiently. Such are the cases of Colombia and Argentina, were the health system should receive most abortion cases when they are unwanted pregnancies that represent a mental and social risk. As a result of the opposition of reactionary groups, the agenda of the Catholic Church as an element of pressure over the governments –even the ones that preach to be progressive-, and the improper use of “conscientious objection”, most abortions are still illegal and, in many cases under unhealthiness conditions. Many women in these countries continue their pregnancy without knowing of their rights, or pressured by the social and family environment, which inculcates in them, during years, preconceptions deeply rooted in the consciousness, somehow forcing them to continue the pregnancy at a very young age. Teenagers in many occasions consider abortion a crime, and they are educated to believe maternity is the way to achieve personal fulfillment.
In the countries where it exists, we must demand the implementation of the decriminalization of abortion. We defend the health to be understood in a comprehensive manner and to include mental and social health, not only the imminent risk of death, as many interpret it. Several researches have confirmed the forced continuation of pregnancy leaves to a higher risk of depression, anxiety, self-destructive behavior, intra-familiar abuse and less incomes for the rest of their lives. In fact, forced continuation of pregnancy is considered a form of torture.
Safe abortion is not dangerous
What is dangerous is unsafe abortion, as thousands of women die due to complications during unsafe abortions, and almost 40% of abortions end up having them. The mortality rate for safe abortion does not reach 1 over 100 thousand; a medical abortion presents less risk than any regular birth or Cesarean. The myth of the dangers of abortion is based on the complications of unsafe abortions, and it is used to argument against the rights, intimidating women who look to practice their right.
Contraceptives to not abort
Among the countries with the most restrictive laws, there is also less access to contraception. 225 million women in the world do not have proper access to contraceptive methods, neither to proper sexual and reproductive health services, nor they have enough education –or the subject “sexual education” is even banned.
25% of married women do not have access to contraceptives, being most of them in Africa. The lack of access is bigger among women with less education, leaving in rural zones, or coming from the poorer families.
Although there is formal access (there are laws or regulations in the country to promote and guarantee contraception), women might face other “invisible” barriers to access it, not so easy to avoid. When they are asked about why they do not use contraceptives despite they do not want to get pregnant, many of them talk about different fear to different kind of adverse effects, like to gain weight, the believe they cannot get pregnant while they are still breastfeeding, or believes on the effect it will have on their femininity, as much as fear to the opinion of their husbands or direct opposition of their partners (“my husband does not allow me to”). For these reasons, the main slogan is education to decide. Up to 74% of abortions could be avoided with education and access to contraceptive methods.
It is not possible to avoid all abortions. In fact, in the countries where there is a wide access to contraception, the reactionary groups are against the abortion arguing there is no justification to abort in the countries where there is free and available contraception. About ¼ of abortions cannot be avoided with contraception, as all methods can fail even when properly used. The contraceptive pills cannot avoid women to be diagnosed with a disease when she is already pregnant, neither can they change her socio-economic situation (to be fired, to be abandoned by the partner), and even less can they avoid malformations. Education and contraception decrease the abortion rate more than any prohibition, but still many women need to abort, so one right cannot void the other one.
Zika and abortion
This year, it is not possible to talk about abortion and not mention the epidemic of Zika, which affected great part of Latin America. The positive correlation between congenital Zika and microcephaly is more evident each time. This situation put on the table the debate on abortion, as in general it is about cases of Zika that were diagnosed too late during pregnancy, and scientifically speaking, this is not cause of death for the mother of the fetus. This case must serve as an example of what should prevail: the autonomy [to decide]. The laws to restrict the gestational age put on the women, specially poor women, unbalanced weights related to facts which are not their responsibility.
Our bet has been, and continues to be, to demand the States real measures to control the epidemic, like fumigation, free distribution of repellents, massive distribution of contraceptives, free abortion for each women who requests it without forcing her to make or wait for delayed and expensive tests, and integral assistance for the children of those who wish to continue the pregnancy.
A class matter
The problem of unsafe abortion and its consequences is a class matter: poor, working, afro and indigenous women around the world are the ones forced to look for unsafe procedures, while the high-class women can leave their country to practice safe abortion, or even pay in their own countries a clandestine but safe service.
Even in the countries where causal abortion is permitted up to certain gestational age, be it twelve or more weeks, it is the poor, less educated, peasants and younger women who pay the consequences. All restrictions affect those who, because of their condition of vulnerability, have less opportunity to access the health system, find about their pregnancy later, or take more time to make the decision due to religious or cultural preconceptions.
So, in Socialism, abortion will be promoted?
Socialists do not promote abortion but the autonomy of women. We consider the woman a human being with rights, capable of making decisions on her life and health, and a moral being who requires nothing but her own consciousness to differentiate right from wrong.
When the working class takes the power, we will not promote the abortion, but we will not force any women to have one. We are in favor of guaranteeing the provision of a health service and the guarantee of a right by the State; that is to say, whose only requirement is the free decision of the woman, independently of her reasons, her labour or social condition, her age or the time of pregnancy.
The free abortion services must always come with free, universal access to contraception, and prenatal free attention programs to all women who want to become mothers. No woman should be forced to abortion even if her pregnancy is product of a raping, the baby has malformations or even if she has too many children or has risk of life. She is the only one to make these decisions, and the State should only guarantee her rights.
The solution is on the struggle
As women, as socialists, we join the voices all over the world against the intensification of the anti-abortion laws in El Salvador and the world. El Salvador is one of the few countries in the world in which abortion is not permitted even to save the mother’s life. Recently, a deputy of ARENA proposed to increase the punishment for abortion from 30 to 50 years. Not even the femicides face this punishment in most countries of the continent. The message is clear: women lives are worthless.
On the contrary, we will join forces to conquer free, safe, public abortion globally. These efforts must be join efforts of the working class and the oppressed ones all over the world. The problem of unsafe abortion is not a women’s problem but the society as a whole. The working class organizations, for example the Unions, must be torchbearers of this struggle, the real struggle for life.
We must achieve full decriminalization so it is not necessary to prove the cause; the will of the woman and her reasons should be enough to practice the right to decide over her own body and life.
We cannot put or hopes in any government, not even the ones that call themselves “left-wing”, because many of them make pacts with the churches to not move forward with the abortion legislation –like the case of Dilma Rousseff. We cannot trust either the organizations of which bourgeois, rulers and millionaire women are part, because even if we might have common interests, they will always put the interests of their governments, business or wealthy families, which is to say their class interests, before the struggle. We can struggle together with them for the things in common, but we cannot depend on them. On the contrary, we must keep our class independence, organizing as female workers and oppressed, and gain the support of the working men.
We must follow the example of the Spanish State, where the mobilization on the streets got to defeat the measures against women. We must mobilize all over the world for the women in El Salvador, Chile, and all countries in which abortion is a crime.
September 20, 2016.
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Translation: Sofia Ballack.
Sources:
https://globaldoctorsforchoice.org/es/recursos/gdc-colombia-publicaciones/
https://www.guttmacher.org/es/fact-sheet/aborto-inducido-nivel-mundial
