Abortion in Chile
On Wednesday the Diario Austral reported that an 18 year old girl induced labor 7 months into her pregnancy. The child breathed once before the mother strangled it with a shoestring, wrapped the bloody fetus in blankets and stuffed it into her closet, leaving it there for two days until her friend who she'd confided in couldn't take it any longer and turned her in. When the cops showed up they freaked out, the paper reports. Probably didn't smell too good.
Chile continues to reap the fruit of Pinochet's labor, and I think the connection I'm about to make is valid. The current president is a woman, single mother, atheist, and liberal, and yet there's absolutely no initiative to legalize abortion. The Catholic right has pitched the battle on the 10 yard line, fighting tooth and nail to keep the morning after pill off the shelves, and they're winning. Why is this?
Chile is well within the the wake of the military regime's 17 years of intense, targeted destruction of leftist organization. The dictatorship ended in 1990, and 2001 saw the first legal proceedings against a National Stadium torturer (by then a professor of political at Chile's prestigious Catholic University).
Despite a majority of poor who are happy to vote for a leftist president every four years, there is no real leftist constituency. The right continues to call the shots economically, militarily and socially. Business. Army. Church.
Business
While Santiago is the focus of a Yale study naming it one of Latin America's three most dangerously polluted cities, Bachelet's party just now created a cabinet-level environmental position, to be filled by some pro-business crony. And that's after 17 years of "democacy."
Army
Adhering to Pinochet's 1980 constitution, 10% of all copper revenues (not profits, revenues) still goes bolstering Chile's already exaggerated military prowess. Meanwhile, the quality of education is rock bottom.
Church
And at this year's Viña del Mar festival, Chilean rock band Los Tres displayed video installation with text such as "On the Eighth Day, God Created the Morning After Pill." It was a pro-choice message, although the the papers call it "pro-abortion". The video created an immediate uproar among the producers of the Catholic University-owned Canal 13, who censored the images in their live broadcast. Canal 13 also has ties to the Catholic Church, still a major constituency influencing public policy.
Not only is abortion illegal in Chile, but a simple pro-choice message has been censored by Chile's biggest television station. Every national AIDs prevention campaign is accompanied by equal airtime and side columns decrying the condom and promoting abstinence, all sponsored by the Catholic Church.
And as far as they're concerned, the pill is abortion. The Clinic reports that a small supply of the morning after pill first arrived in Chile in 2001, and anyone could buy it at a pharmacy with a prescription.
But in 2004 the government overstepped the bounds by ordering 36 thousand pills for poor people facing medical emergencies, like rape. Or incest. Girls 14 and up can get the pill without consulting their parents. That's law. Reacting to this affront, however, the Catholic right successfully pressured Chilean pharmacies to stop manufacturing and selling the pill. The government hasn't bought any new pills, and the small supply at the pharmacies, if any, will have been imported from Mexico, Peru and Columbia. But it's pretty much impossible to find the pill at a pharmacy, The Clinic reports. And the alternative, slamming back up to 50 normal birth control pills, may no longer be available as conservatives are already presenting the case before the court to remove normal birth control pills from the market.
In the same issue, The Clinic published a letter of a girl's nightmarish journey through Santiago on a Sunday, looking for Prostinor (the morning after pill), which was nowhere to be found, in either pharmacies or public health centers. She talks about the looks given her, as if she were a "sexual pervert" for asking.
In this cultural context, the horrific strangulation of a recently born child implicates Chile as much as the girl. Catholics in control of Chilean public policy are promulgating societal filthiness -- AIDS, teen pregnancy, uncounted Misotrol abortions carried out without medical supervision and a shoestring strangulation.
Filthy Catholics, shut up and let Chile move into the modernity it prematurely claims. Keep religion in the Church, because it's not working in the real world. Even if you'd waited till Easter to open the closet door, that strangled fetus would still be lying wide-eyed in the closet, staring back at you. No ascendancy there, just bad policy.
Chile continues to reap the fruit of Pinochet's labor, and I think the connection I'm about to make is valid. The current president is a woman, single mother, atheist, and liberal, and yet there's absolutely no initiative to legalize abortion. The Catholic right has pitched the battle on the 10 yard line, fighting tooth and nail to keep the morning after pill off the shelves, and they're winning. Why is this?
Chile is well within the the wake of the military regime's 17 years of intense, targeted destruction of leftist organization. The dictatorship ended in 1990, and 2001 saw the first legal proceedings against a National Stadium torturer (by then a professor of political at Chile's prestigious Catholic University).
Despite a majority of poor who are happy to vote for a leftist president every four years, there is no real leftist constituency. The right continues to call the shots economically, militarily and socially. Business. Army. Church.
Business
While Santiago is the focus of a Yale study naming it one of Latin America's three most dangerously polluted cities, Bachelet's party just now created a cabinet-level environmental position, to be filled by some pro-business crony. And that's after 17 years of "democacy."
Army
Adhering to Pinochet's 1980 constitution, 10% of all copper revenues (not profits, revenues) still goes bolstering Chile's already exaggerated military prowess. Meanwhile, the quality of education is rock bottom.
Church
And at this year's Viña del Mar festival, Chilean rock band Los Tres displayed video installation with text such as "On the Eighth Day, God Created the Morning After Pill." It was a pro-choice message, although the the papers call it "pro-abortion". The video created an immediate uproar among the producers of the Catholic University-owned Canal 13, who censored the images in their live broadcast. Canal 13 also has ties to the Catholic Church, still a major constituency influencing public policy.
Not only is abortion illegal in Chile, but a simple pro-choice message has been censored by Chile's biggest television station. Every national AIDs prevention campaign is accompanied by equal airtime and side columns decrying the condom and promoting abstinence, all sponsored by the Catholic Church.
And as far as they're concerned, the pill is abortion. The Clinic reports that a small supply of the morning after pill first arrived in Chile in 2001, and anyone could buy it at a pharmacy with a prescription.
But in 2004 the government overstepped the bounds by ordering 36 thousand pills for poor people facing medical emergencies, like rape. Or incest. Girls 14 and up can get the pill without consulting their parents. That's law. Reacting to this affront, however, the Catholic right successfully pressured Chilean pharmacies to stop manufacturing and selling the pill. The government hasn't bought any new pills, and the small supply at the pharmacies, if any, will have been imported from Mexico, Peru and Columbia. But it's pretty much impossible to find the pill at a pharmacy, The Clinic reports. And the alternative, slamming back up to 50 normal birth control pills, may no longer be available as conservatives are already presenting the case before the court to remove normal birth control pills from the market.
In the same issue, The Clinic published a letter of a girl's nightmarish journey through Santiago on a Sunday, looking for Prostinor (the morning after pill), which was nowhere to be found, in either pharmacies or public health centers. She talks about the looks given her, as if she were a "sexual pervert" for asking.
In this cultural context, the horrific strangulation of a recently born child implicates Chile as much as the girl. Catholics in control of Chilean public policy are promulgating societal filthiness -- AIDS, teen pregnancy, uncounted Misotrol abortions carried out without medical supervision and a shoestring strangulation.
Filthy Catholics, shut up and let Chile move into the modernity it prematurely claims. Keep religion in the Church, because it's not working in the real world. Even if you'd waited till Easter to open the closet door, that strangled fetus would still be lying wide-eyed in the closet, staring back at you. No ascendancy there, just bad policy.
posted by Chileno @ 4:33 PM
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8 Comments:
Hey, have you gotten any bomb threats from the Catholic church for this one? A little disturbing, and just down my alley!
-R²
As long as the lifeless body is thrown into the trashcan by a certified abortionist, and not staring up at you from your closet, it's all okay. I mean, let's not be illogical. Why does it matter if the child is strangled with a shoestring by her mother, or is injected with poison by a "doctor" who goes into the mother's womb with the mother's permission. Or don't you support the right of every woman to kill her child?
>>>let's not be illogical
...nor illiterate.
The thrust of this entry, if you read it entirely, is that the Catholic Church has fought against the condom, is fighting against the birth control pill, and has made the morning-after pill nearly impossible to obtain. Add to that the cultural stagnancy which marginalizes women who don't want to pump out babies, including the denigrating looks girls receive when asking for the morning after pill at pharmacies. Which means that in this political-cultural context, it's much more likely for a man and woman to mistakenly conceive, including by rape & incest, without recourse to non-abortive birth control. Meaning that thanks to the Catholic Church, the woman's only option is abortion -- or should she have the child? Let's decide that for her, why don't we.
The Catholic Church doesn't promote reproductive choice. When a woman with an unwanted child resorts to abortion, she has to do it in an illegal, unsafe manner. An extreme example is the shoestring strangulation I write about. I am concluding that it's the Catholic Church and by extension Chilean culture, that pulled the string tight.
And your "logic" that 'killing a baby is killing a baby' fails to acknowledge that most democratic, first-world societies have accepted the woman's right to abortion, but that virtually no modern society has legitimized killing birthed babies. In your world, it may be the same thing. But in the first world, there's a distinction.
A healthy public policy society needs to permit abortion. I haven't heard of a single woman who 'enjoys' abortion. Ideally, the need wouldn't arise in the first place. Allow women to have the option, and also provide counseling, alternatives, sex education and birth control. Limit the potentialities, but when it has to happen, make sure it's safe for the woman.
Conservative Catholic policy promotes pregnancy by limiting birth control resources, but then forces women into unsafe abortive practices.
The Catholic Church is effectively ruining peoples' lives, promoting the spread of AIDS as well as unwanted pregnancy. It's uncivilized. And it's undemocratic. Check out this article on how most Chileans agree that condoms are necessary, while the biggest TV station (Catholic-owned) refuses to air gov't pro-condom ads because they are in lock-step with the Roman Catholic Church. Is this democracy?
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=56539
Sorry, here's the link:
Catholic hypocrisy and filthy public health in Chile
Hey Will ~
Great post ! It would make my Catholic (long departed) parents squirm ... and some (not all) of the Holy Cross guys I know down here. I wish Gerald Whelan (of 'Muchacha' fame) were still around. I had an interesting discussion with him about ten years ago about making condom vending machines available to 15+ students at St. George's as a counter-measure to AIDS (side-benefit=birth control - but 'shhhhh' ;-)
He agreed - but I imagine the hierarchy must have shot him down!
We can't have adolescent-fucking, y'know ... the Lord would never approve - nor would the recently departed Falwell or the 'sadly-still here' Bush. I'm not sure that the evangelical kooks aren't a much bigger problem than the Catholic crowd (in most places) - who often look the other way ... 'screwing on Friday, Confession on Saturday, Mass on Sunday' is the 'catholic way' ... unless they get political power, as in Chile.
Dominus Vobiscum, Will - GREAT meeting you.
Tom Routledge
One thing about Chilean society as a whole, is that it puts more importance on being perceived the "right" way by others. Which does not reflect how they really are inside. People in power there preach all the teachings of Catholicism but in reality show no mercy and "amor al projimo" towards others. They twist it to suit their needs which is hypocritical. They do allow "Legal Abortions" in Chile ever since modern medicine made it posible. However it's very expensive and mostly people with a nice amount of discretionnaire income get them done. Since the mid 20th century a small amount of women have gotten legal abortions in Chile. What people do is visit their doctor tell him/her they want an abortion and they will perform in a hospital. To cover their backs the paperwork for the "surgery" is writing up to say you have something else, and bill you for that $omething else. If they got alot of money they go to a country where it's legal and get it done there. As you can see abortions are mostly the domain of the poor rich little white rusias. No Planned Parenthood equivalent in Chile to assist the female masses with their reproductive rights. One of the factors girls from lower and middle class are much more likely to be a single mothers and have kids from different fathers. And top it off Chileans men prefer it raw, over putting a hat over it. ;)
Tom, you're right. Falwell was a filthy protestant, and pro-lifers like Bush (who I'm sure is just cynical) continue contaminating the USA.
It doesn't surprise me about Gerald Whelan, he seemed progressive. Of course, like you say, you'll get a lot more mileage if you frame it as a public health issue, rather than reproduction. There seems to be a blind impulsiveness for Chile to keep pumping out babies. It's such a small country, teetering on the edge of existence...
Opus Dei families set a good example, the only difference is that they can FEED mommy's nine kids.
You:
You hit the nail on the head. That's the most important point aspect of abortion in Chile, it's TOTALLY a class issue. I thought of that while writing the post, but there's so much other crazy shit I had to be selective. Although fundamentally, the most important part is classism. This upright conservative policy is ignored by the rich because they're above the law. That's why conservative PM's freaked out when 36 thousand morning after pills were made available for PUBLIC use in 2004. It's so nakedly classist it's disgusting.
So in that context I wax philosophical: Arafat (a filthy muslim, or just cynical) said the mother's womb was the Palestinian's strongest weapon. Chile seems to be in the same mentality, yet with no war. So why the arms race?
I'm thinking it's foreign exploitation and a chance for the upper class to turn a buck, como siempre, off the brute force of a growing market of easy debtors and even if that game falls through at least you got cheap labor.
Hi
It's "you: " again.
Of course it is a class issue, always been. Despite Chile's now embrace of "liberalism", if a unmarried girl becomes pregant it is not they want. Especialy if the youngman is from an unsuitable class that can really taint her well-to-do familyls reputation. So before there is evidence of a visible "babybelly" they get it taken care off. It is an open secret that a large amount of the girls at the most illustrious private schools in Santaigo have had an abortion. Just no one talks about. Sshh!
Now mothers to prevent their precious teenage daughters from an unwanted pregancy they get them to use the Depo-Provera injection, or similar product. This prevents unpregancies for a extended period of time without having to worry if she missed taking a pill that day. Sadly it's not likely to be offered to everyone. I am glad they gave the morning after pill in 2004. They needed to because Chile now has a large percentage of babies being born by unwed mothers who never planned on conceiving they just did not have the tools or enough of sexual education in school to properly care of their bodies. Girls over there told me condifently, the men "airmail" but I told them don't be gullible since pre-cum can also get them knocked up. What they need to do in Chile is to leave the "taboo" and "morboso" aspect of sex. Just teach youngwomen especially about taking care of themselves from unwanted pregancies and stds.
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