04/10/2010
Grace McGarvie is a retired social sciences teacher from the suburbs of Minneapolis who has—over fifty years—collected more quotations than Bartlett’s. But as she diligently added the bon mots of poets and heads of states, she managed to find the time to coin a few wise ones of her own—like this:
“Republicans are against abortion until their daughters need one. Democrats are for abortion until their daughters want one.”
Abortion and objectivity—they’re like oil and water.
It’s Manichean for most, and there’s a good chance—wherever you stand, that your opinion on that one question will give pretty good insight into your beliefs on myriad others:
You support the killing of the innocent but the sanctity of life when it comes to murderers?
You’re pro-life but support capital punishment?
Americans get wrapped up in Roe v. Wade, Canadians in Morgantaler, for many Latin American women, politics is secondary to what can at times be a harsh reality.
1,600 women in Argentina took to the streets last week to demand the courts decriminalize abortion; they were joined by other women throughout the region, which aside from Cuba and Mexico City is pretty draconian when it comes to this particular choice.
In Argentina, where abortion is only legal in cases where a woman suffering from a severe handicap is raped, or in which her life is at risk, 4 in 10 pregnancies are terminated…by whatever means available.
The health of the mother be damned in El Salvador.
What about gang rape? Nope.
I remember reading an article a few years ago about a woman named Sofía who was raped in the outskirts of San Salvador, used the resources available to her to end the pregnancy, and was forced to confess like a criminal when she went to a public gynecologist to stop the bleeding.
True, Sofía did get lucky. If I remember correctly, she got three years probation as opposed to the two year prison sentence she could have received. The rapists—of course—were never apprehended.
It’s no different for women in Chile. For obvious reasons, statistics aren’t always easy to come by, but from what I’ve found, the Chilean Ministry of Health reported 33,000 abortion-related hospitalizations in 2005. An incredibly popular President Bachelet did try to use that popularity—along with her medical background, to effect some changes, but the opposition was predictably fierce. And because she promised she wouldn’t try to overturn the laws during the 2005 Presidential campaign, she faced down charges of hypocrisy for championing access to the “morning after pill.”
With the conservative Sebastian Piñera now at the helm, and Bachelet at the UN, changes won’t be forthcoming.
In Brazil, where many thought she would cruise to victory in the recent elections on the coattails of President Lula da Silva, Dilma Rousseff was forced to radically change her position on the subject days before the election to salvage any possibility of winning outright in the first round of voting. After telling Marie Claire magazine a year ago that she favored changes for public health reasons, because “there is an enormous amount of women in Brazil who die from abortion in precarious circumstances,” she suddenly had a change of heart at the last minute—well aware she couldn’t sacrifice the huge Catholic and evangelical vote.
That she didn’t win outright is probably a testament to many Brazilian voters’ ability to see through the obvious insincerity.
Of course Rousseff’s vacillating isn’t in any way unique, and sacrificing her beliefs for politics couldn’t have been a decision she made lightly—but as the women of Latin America have their realities, so do the politicians. The latter can only legislate to the extent their constituents allow; the former continue to do what they need to survive.
And no law will ever change that.
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