Quote:
Originally Posted by Edmund_Burke
How is that possible?
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The data is from the 1980s and 1990s, but it gives you the idea:
"Each year, more than four million women in Latin America undergo an induced abortion. Because most abortions are illegal, these procedures are performed under clandestine and often dangerous conditions. As a result, the region faces a serious public health problem that threatens women's lives, endangers their reproductive health and imposes a severe strain on already overextended health and hospital systems."
The data also shows that most women who have abortions are married with children.
'But the majority of the patients appear to be married women who already have all the children they feel able to care for. The difficult social and economic conditions facing many millions of families in Latin America's poor rural areas and vast city slums spur the desire of couples to have fewer children. So do increases in women's level of education and women's increased participation in the labor market."
An Overview of Clandestine Abortion in Latin America
" Although in most western countries this a practice is based on parental demand, in the case of Chile members of Congress tabled a bill in 2007 on the same issue arguing that the fetus is a person from the moment of fertilisation (‘‘conception’’ in their language), requiring that it be treated the same as a person (Boletı ́n Legislativo No.5261-11).
Chile has the highest rate of abortion.
"The lack of medical guidelines on when interruption of pregnancy is permissible, accompanied by fear of prosecution, place both medical professionals and women in a highly vulnerable position. When pregnancy seriously threatens a woman’s health, physicians must wait until 22 weeks to terminate the pregnancy. Some postpone cancer treatment and even delay dealing with ectopic pregnancy, causing addi- tional risks to the woman’s life and health."
"Casas5 recounts several cases of egregious human rights violations when women are reported to the authorities.
‘‘. . .as the nurses interrogated her and the doctors lectured her, she watched her hands going transparent from the blood loss. . . ‘I remember the nurses telling me that if I didn’t give them the name of the doctor who gave me the abortion, they would let me bleed to death’.’’ (16-year-old)
http://www.ssds.net/ssds-products/pe...s-in-Chile.pdf