I was browsing the New York Times elite page thanks to MSOC's generosity, when my eye caught the editorial entitled
Abortion Rights in Latin America. Being from Latin America myself, Venezuela to be more specific, the editorial pretty much sums up what we all know would happen in USA should abortion be criminalized.
Read on...
For proof that criminalizing abortion doesn't reduce abortion rates and only endangers the lives of women, consider Latin America. In most of the region, abortions are a crime, but the abortion rate is far higher than in Western Europe or the United States. Colombia - where abortion is illegal even if a woman's life is in danger - averages more than one abortion per woman over all of her fertile years. In Peru, the average is nearly two abortions per woman over the course of her reproductive years.
Quite obvious to all of us on the right side of the issue: the more you crack down on the availability for women to obtain a safe and legal abortion, the more they go up, and of course the more dangerous a procedure it is.
In a region where there is little sex education and social taboos keep unmarried women from seeking contraception, criminalizing abortion has not made it rare, only dangerous. Rich women can go to private doctors. The rest rely on quacks or amateurs or do it themselves. Up to 5,000 women die each year from abortions in Latin America, and hundreds of thousands more are hospitalized.
Well well well...isn't that exactly what the anti-choice fanatics want? Obsolete and useless "abstinence only" education, pharmacists who can object to filling contraceptive perscriptions with the ultimate goal of outlawing birth control altogether, and no abotions allowed, period. As one can see, those are currently the circumstances in Latin America today, with disastrous results: 5,000 women dead each year thanks to backalley abortions. Is that what we want to go back to?
Latin American women, who are increasing their participation in the work force and in politics, have also become more vocal. Their voice would be much louder were it not for the Bush administration's global gag rule, which bans any family planning group that gets American money from speaking about abortions, or even criticizing unsafe illegal abortions. This has silenced such respected and influential groups as Profamilia in Colombia. Anti-abortion lawmakers in Washington can look at Latin America as a place where the global gag rule has worked exactly as they had hoped. All Americans can look at Latin America to see unnecessary deaths and injuries from unsafe abortions.
Bush comes to the rescue again! It is a travesty that the Bush administration has done this--yet another way in which they have blood on their hands.
The editorial mentions that the issue of abortion is becoming more and more important in Latin American countries, as outrage from these unnecessary deaths pile up every year, and in many countries, the possibility of legalization is within reach, as polling has shown great support for it. Of course, it isn't a surprise to anyone how influential the Catholic Church is in Latin America, and the role they play in the so called "moral values issues." I saw it first hand, the church is extremely powerful in these countries and they are at the heart of the continuation of outdated and dangerous value systems that cannot apply to today's societies. With the Alito confirmation hearings drawing ever so close, it is important to remember what is at stake here. Abortion is not an academic intellectual debate for elites to discuss in Ivy League universities; it is a real life issue affecting real people, and the stakes have never been higher. Abortion is not the only important issue, but it cannot be taken for granted, the consequences are grave.
You wanna criminalize abortion? Take a peek down South to see how it would work.