The battle for reproductive rights in Latin America
Posted by: Jenny Penny in Americas, Health, Reproductive rightsWomen’s eNews has a story up on how the leftist regime shift in Latin America has failed to address the issue of reproductive rights, but how Brazil seems to be an exception.
In the Brazilian town of Recife, where carnival just starts, the government is planning to dispense emergency contraception (EC, aka Plan B or the morning after pill). Not surprisingly, the archbishop of Recife warned that those who use EC will face excommunication and vowed to seek action in court to block it.
(And here it’s time to say it again: EC is not an “abortion pill”. It works by preventing ovulation or fertilization. If you’re already pregnant, it won’t work.)
Brazil’s minister for health, Jose Temporao, has also called for discussing abortion as a matter of public health and women’s reproductive rights. Women’s eNews writes:
“Unfortunately, women haven’t been heard on this discussion,” Temporao said in an e-mail interview with Women’s eNews. “They are the most interested party. There are 700 hospitalizations per day due to problems relating to abortion . . . I wonder: If men got pregnant, would this issue be resolved by now?”
Read the rest of the story, because it is at least some good news from a continent where women’s lives are sacrificed in the name of “morality” and “sanctity of life”.
If you read Swedish, you should read Vida Latina’s post from a few weeks ago, about Argentina. I have translated a bit here, because it is so appalling:
“She came to the ER on a Saturday, because she has such stomach pains that she didn’t know what to do, and she was getting a fever. But the doctors refused to help her, because according to them, her symptoms indicated that she had an abortion. She should suffer. Come back on Monday, she was told. Monday, she came back. The diagnosis: a ruptured appendix.”
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