Argentina: Girls As Young As 11 Denied Abortion After Rape, Anti-Choice Officials Obstruct
Last edited Wed Mar 6, 2019, 05:04 PM - Edit history (1)
"'Thousands' of young girls denied abortion after rape in Argentina." Anti-choice doctors and health officials accused of obstructing legal terminations after 11-year-old girl gave birth to rapist’s child. The Guardian, March 5, 2019.
The lives of thousands of girls in Argentina are being put at risk as legal abortions are delayed and obstructed by doctors trying to force pregnancies to full term. The issue of anti-choice doctors, medical institutions and government officials deliberately trying to hold up legally sanctioned terminations was brought into sharp focus last week when it emerged that an 11-year-old girl’s baby was born alive because health officials delayed her request for an abortion. The girl had fallen pregnant after being raped by her grandmother’s boyfriend.
A practitioner who assisted in the procedure told the Guardian there were thousands of such cases in Argentina.
The story of Lucía – not her real name – was raped by her grandmother’s 65-year-old partner. She was denied an abortion, despite the law allowing terminations in cases of rape or when the woman’s life is at risk. Despite Lucía qualifying on both accounts, local authorities in the northern province of Tucumán, where she lives, delayed a decision until 23 weeks into her pregnancy. By that time Lucía was not physically able to undergo a normal, vaginal abortion. Instead she had to undergo what is called a hysterotomy abortion, in which the foetus is removed via a small incision in the abdomen, similar to a caesarean section. Rescued by hospital staff, the foetus survived the procedure but is not expected to live.
According to the latest government figures, 2,493 live births in 2017 were to girls under 15. Many such pregnancies are the result of rape by family members. More than 91,500 births were to girls aged 15 to 19. The WHO-World Health Organization has found that complications in pregnancy and childbirth are the biggest killers of 15- to 19-year-old girls. While no official figures are collected for girls aged under 15, the WHO said mothers aged 10 to 19 face higher risks of eclampsia, puerperal endometritis and systemic infections than women aged 20 to 24.
“Since these births are often the result of sexual abuse, they are detected late, usually when the girl starts complaining of stomach upsets,” says feminist journalist Mariana Carbajal, who first broke Lucía’s story in the progressive daily Página/12. “Doctors regularly fail to inform the victim or the family that they are entitled to a legal abortion in such cases.” “There is a systematic pattern of violation of the rights of young girls in Argentina,” says Sabrina Cartabia, a lawyer campaigning for legal abortion. “The lack of a national policy makes the process complicated and uneven. It differs in each province, municipality and even from one hospital to another.”
The problem is compounded by the hold of the Catholic church and conservatives who advocate a policy of “save both lives”...
More, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/mar/05/thousands-young-girls-denied-abortion-argentina
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