After Jailing Women, Bolivia Weighs Legalizing Abortion
After Jailing Women, Bolivia Weighs Legalizing Abortion
The move would be a major step in a region with harsh restrictions on terminating pregnancies.
Gillian Kane Jun 24 2013, 10:34 AM ET
On January 30, 2012, Helena, a 27-year-old Guaraní Indian, was arrested and handcuffed to her bed at the Percy Boland Maternity Hospital in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Six months earlier, she had been raped; at the time of her arrest she was 24 weeks pregnant. Helena (not her real name) was reported to police authorities by her doctor after seeking emergency treatment for obstetric complications from taking pills to end her pregnancy. She was charged with the crime of abortion. Abortion is illegal in Bolivia and lawbreakers like Helena can face up to three years in prison.
Punitive responses to crisis health needs like this play out all over Latin America, where abortion is largely illegal or highly restricted in many countries. That may soon change in Bolivia, however. The nation's top court is scheduled to meet Monday to review a constitutional challenge to the country's abortion laws and to other policies that impede women's access to a full range of human rights. A positive decision would mean that for the first time in 41 years, Bolivian women meeting certain conditions for an abortion would be free from criminal sanctions.
President Evo Morales's election in 2006 ushered in an unprecedented era of indigenous pride and rights for Bolivia. In 2009 these rights were codified in a new constitution that ranks among the more radical in the world. Based on the principles of decolonization and depatriarchialization, the constitution recognizes and protects, for the first time, Bolivia's indigenous communities and Pachamama (Mother Earth), a local term for the environment. It prohibits discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, and it identifies Bolivia as a pacifist, secular state. In another first, it guarantees sexual and reproductive rights.
However, the rub lies in the implementation of the constitution: Many laws must still be revised to reflect the new rights. This includes the country's penal codes, which date to 1972. It is under these penal codes that Helena was charged and imprisoned for an illegal abortion.
More:
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/06/after-jailing-women-bolivia-weighs-legalizing-abortion/277147/
