On 29 December 2020, Argentina became the latest Latin American country to legalise elective abortions, following Cuba, Chile, Guyana, and Uruguay. While this move has been welcomed by those women’s groups who have been campaigning for change, many women in Latin America still do not have full reproductive autonomy and the stigma around abortion remains, putting many women in danger. 

ABORTION LAW & PRACTICE IN LATIN AMERICA

Currently, abortion is permitted when the mother’s health is at risk in Guatemala, Paraguay, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Peru,and Ecuador. While Brazil, Panama, Bolivia, and Columbia allow for abortion when there is health risks, incest, or rape. Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic, however, still permit no exceptions for abortion. With only five out of thirty three Latin nations granting women abortion on request, thousands of women are being denied access to their human rights. 

In Honduras and El Salvador, women can be sentenced up to 10 years in prison for an illegal abortion. They also facesocial exclusion and the ramifications of having a criminal record on release. Unfortunately, the risks of continuing with a pregnancy sometimes outweigh the risks of having an illegal abortion. As a result, 760,000 Latin American women turn to clandestine abortion clinics each year. Clandestine abortions can be dangerous and are classed as unsafe in the WHO’s recommended methods for induced abortions. WHO have estimated that three out of four Latin American abortions are unsafe and result in an estimated 2,000 deaths every year. Recent research has shown that illegal abortions in Latin America are performed at a higher rate than legal abortions in other countries like the US. 

Poorer women who lack access to safe procedures are more at risk of having unsafe abortions. The Guttmacher Institute concluded that between 2012-2014 almost 1 in 4 abortions in Latin America were unsafe. This not only highlights the continued failure to protect Latin American women from potentially fatal medical practices, but the failure to ensure access to contraception, birth control, and sexual education to women and girls.

REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM

However, legalising abortion is only half the story. Due to the opposition of the Catholic Church. women seeking legal abortion in the region have endured prejudices and even been rejected by doctors. Chile, for example, voted to legalise abortions over three years ago, but data shows that half of doctors refuse to carry out abortions in pregnancies resulting from rape, while 29% refuse abortions even if the foetus is unlikely to survive the full term, and 21% refuse despite the mothers health being at extreme risk.

However, the right to free and safe reproductive healthcare is part of a greater issue around women’s rights in Latin America. Worsening domestic and gender-based violence has seen femicide numbers double in the last five years. Women’s rights groups have campaigned to relax abortion restrictions and improve access to birth control, in part, to give women greater freedom to leave dangerous domestic situations. Women from poorer communities  “suffer most”, not only because they do not have the means to access safe procedures, but also because they faced an increased threat of sexual violence, and an increased risk of social exclusion and prejudice. 

It is essential that women’s groups continue to fight for increased reproductive rights in the region in order to grant women safe control over their bodies without fear of prejudice, discrimination or death. 

Holly has a Master’s Degree in International Relations from Liverpool Hope University. She has a specific interest in gender equality and wrote her dissertation on role of the female peace movement in modern society as well as recently completing a course in Feminism and Social Justice at UCSC. Having worked for three years as a multilingual foreign news editor, she is pursuing a career in international relations and communication.

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