Promising Signs in Argentine Struggle for Safe, Legal Abortion
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BUENOS AIRES, May 27 (IPS) - Twenty-year-old Romina Tejerina is scheduled to stand trial in June in Argentina, and could very likely be sentenced to life in prison for stabbing to death her newborn daughter.
Tejerina, who lives in the northwestern Argentine province of Jujuy, became pregnant when she was raped by a neighbour. She has already spent two years in prison awaiting trial. The neighbour who raped her was never punished for his crime. While this case is a particularly tragic one, it is symptomatic of the desperation felt by thousands of women in Latin American countries where abortion is illegal, even when pregnancy is the result of sexual assault. Experts believe that Tejerina's trial will end with her receiving the maximum sentence applicable in Argentina. In the meantime, her rapist, a man twice her age, was cleared of any wrongdoing 20 days after the case was reported, and has appeared on television claiming that he had wanted the baby girl to be given his last name. In Argentina, abortion is only legally permitted in cases of rape when the woman is deemed mentally disturbed or retarded, or when the health or life of the expectant mother is endangered. But in spite of these restrictions, the Ministry of Health estimates that 500,000 pregnancies are terminated every year through clandestine abortions, which have become the leading cause of maternal mortality in Argentina. The same holds true in neighbouring Uruguay, where abortion is also illegal except in certain highly limited circumstances. In November 2004, Argentine Health Minister Ginés González García admitted that abortion had become such a major health problem in the country that it would be wise to begin discussing its legalisation. His stance, which is not shared by President Néstor Kirchner, drew furious opposition from the Catholic Church and conservative sectors. But others hailed it as a positive step forward. The minister was the driving force behind the country's first sexual and reproductive health legislation, through which contraceptives are provided free of charge in public hospitals. He also spearheaded the publication of a manual to ensure adequate care and treatment for women who come to hospital emergency rooms suffering the after-effects of improperly conducted clandestine abortions. Dilation and curettage (scraping of the uterine walls), required as a result of an incomplete abortion, is the second most frequent reason for hospitalisation of women of child-bearing age in Argentina. Non-governmental organisations maintain that poor, marginalised women suffer mistreatment at the hands of doctors and nurses who view them with contempt for having chosen to interrupt their pregnancies. The ”Guide for Improving Post-Abortion Care” will be distributed to all of the country's health care centres in June. The manual urges health care professionals to provide ”humane” and ”unprejudiced” medical treatment for these cases, and recommends the use of the suction technique to clean out the uterus, because unlike dilation and curettage, it does not require general anaesthesia. Numerous women's rights organisations with a long history of fighting for the legalisation of abortion have decided to seize the unprecedented opportunity offered by a minister open to their views. This Friday, on the eve of the International Day of Action for Women's Health, a coalition of women's groups from throughout the country launched the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion in Argentina. Maria José Lubertino, the director of the Women's Social and Political Institute and one of the coordinators of the campaign, told IPS that it will include the organisation of workshops to provide information and promote reflection and debate on the issue. The participants will also be collecting signatures to call on Congress to adopt a law legalising abortion, or at the very least, legislation aimed in this direction, she added. ”The minister has given official legitimacy to a debate that the women's movement has been promoting for 20 years,” Lubertino stressed. The campaign will wrap up on Sept. 28, which has been designated the Day for the Decriminalisation and Legalisation of Abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the signatures collected will be handed over to Congress two months later. ”Women's groups support any proposed legislation that entails progress towards the legalisation of abortion,” noted Lubertino, alluding to initiatives that currently have greater support and are aimed at extending legal authorisation for abortion to all cases of rape, or when it is determined that the foetus cannot survive outside the womb. A survey conducted earlier this year, commissioned by the Argentine branch of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, found that 76 percent of respondents were in favour of the legalisation of abortion for women who had been raped. Brazilian law already allows for the termination of rape-induced pregnancy, although women seeking an abortion on these grounds must frequently contend with obstacles posed by some health care professionals and complicated legal requirements. The survey also indicated that a high percentage of respondents felt that abortion should be legal if it is determined that the foetus suffers a deformity that will make life outside the womb impossible. When such a diagnosis is made today, the woman is obliged to carry the pregnancy to term and go through the process of delivery and childbirth, even when it is known that the baby will die within minutes. On the other hand, support decreases significantly when the reasons for terminating a pregnancy are less extreme. Only 19 percent believed that women should be able to have an abortion because they do not want to have a child, while 18 percent felt it was justified in cases where pregnancy results from the failure of a birth control method. Nevertheless, 70 percent said they believed that most women with unwanted pregnancies already resort to abortion, even though it is illegal. When Tejerina was raped, she was too ashamed to tell anyone, and was afraid that no one would believe her. When she realised that she had missed her period for several months, she finally went to a doctor, who confirmed that she was pregnant. He also told her that he could not help her, because abortion is illegal. Instead, she hid the pregnancy, while trying every home remedy and method she knew of to abort. When she gave birth to a baby girl in the bathroom of her home in the seventh month of pregnancy, the desperate teenager attempted to continue keeping her secret. In what psychiatric experts have qualified as a ”psychotic episode”, she killed the newborn by stabbing it 17 times. ”I didn't know what to do,” she told the police who questioned her after the tragic incident. The vast majority of Argentines believe that in cases like these, women should have recourse to safe, legal abortion. Now it is up to Congress to support this stance by turning it into law. |
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