In many countries across Latin America, abortion isn’t just inaccessible. It’s a crime for which a woman can be prosecuted. In Argentina, for example, women who undergo abortions face one to four years in prison. In Ecuador, women, including children, who seek abortions can be imprisoned for up to two years. These nations provide a preview of what the world might look like if anti-choicers have their way. The big surprise: abortion rates are actually higher in Latin America.
Higher Abortion Rates in Nations That Ban Abortion
Argentina bans abortions unless the woman’s life is in danger or she was raped and has a mental illness. Yet doctors perform half a million illegal abortion procedures each year. The Guttmacher Institute estimates that 6.5 million abortions occur each year in Latin America.
In 2014, the abortion rate in the United States was 14 per 1,000 women. In Latin America, the abortion rate is more than three times as high, at 44 per 1,000. Clearly women are willing to risk imprisonment—and sometimes their lives—to control their bodies.
What Happens to Women and Girls When Abortion is Banned
The abortion ban in Latin America has led more women to turn to unsafe abortion practices. They attempt abortions with pill overdoses or with self-injurious behaviors. Some women just give up. When El Salvador banned abortion, suicide became the third-leading cause of maternal mortality.
Abortion can save women’s lives. So states and nations don’t even have to ban abortion for women to begin dying. One recent study found that closing abortion clinics lowers women’s access to life-saving preventative care. The World Health Organization recently published data suggesting that nearly half of abortions are performed in unsafe conditions, largely due to either illegal or inaccessible abortion clinics. The results are ghastly: 44,000 women die from unsafe abortions each year. When abortion is safely performed, the death rate is nearly zero.
Even when women denied abortions don’t eventually terminate their pregnancies, the cost to women and children can be massive. The Turnaway Study documents the effects of restrictive abortion policies that deny women abortions. Women who undergo abortions almost never regret their choice, but women denied abortions often go onto lead needlessly difficult lives. They’re more likely to live in poverty, to rely on government assistance, and to remain in abusive relationships.
This means that the babies they birth—the babies anti-choicers purport to care so much about—are also more likely to live in poverty, be abused, and seek government assistance. Yet the right’s only contribution to these kids has been to attempt to slash funding for children’s health insurance, lower food stamp benefits, and limit access to school lunch vouchers.
The Only Real Pro-Life Option: Legal, Accessible Abortion
Women’s desire to control their own reproductive destinies will not change. They have sought abortions for centuries, in all cultures and governments. The case study of Latin America clarifies that legal hurdles will not prevent women from seeking abortions—but that those hurdles can endanger women and the children they already have. After all, 61% of women who seek abortions already have children. If they die or are permanently disabled, their children suffer.
If anti-choicers really care about children, they’ll protect the lives of mothers, and stop supporting policies that kill women.
