Increase in Maternal Deaths: The Silent Impact of Covid-19 on Latin America

The scale of the health emergency led to restrictions and closures in reproductive health services for months.  Artwork by Leila Arenas

International Campaign for Safe Abortion
May 21, 2021

With health systems focused on containing the virus, women have experienced severe hardships when trying to access reproductive health services, such as perinatal care, contraceptive methods and safe abortion services. The monitoring carried out in nine countries in the region is showing that these limitations have led to an increase in maternal deaths. Just in Peru, 433 expectant mothers passed away between January and December of 2020, a number not seen in a decade. This year, more than 90 deaths have been registered up to March 9th. If we continue on this path, specialists asked warn, the indicators could be even worse than those reported during the first few months of the pandemic.

Continued: https://mailchi.mp/safeabortionwomensright/21-may-2021?e=372dd34034


Changes in the sexual and reproductive lives of Chilean men and women

Primer Informe sobre Salud Sexual, Salud Reproductiva y Derechos Humanos en Chile
by Safe Abortion | posted Jan 6, 2017

El estudio de la Corporación Miles se refiere a los cambios en la vida sexual y reproductiva de los chilenos y chilenas y a los déficit en los campos de las políticas públicas y las leyes, estableciendo comparaciones con otros países.

(This study by Corporación Miles analyses changes in the sexual and reproductive lives of Chilean men and women and the deficit in public policy and law underlying them, and draws comparisons with other countries.)

Este informe analiza el estado de la situación al 2016, tras 28 años de transformaciones y disputas sociociocultales respecto a estas materias. La edición del documento estuvo a cargo de la directora ejecutiva de Miles, Claudia Dides y Constanza Fernández del equipo de investigación de la entidad, y contó con los aportes tecnicos de Leo Arenas, Jennifer Duran, Eduardo Soto, Marissa Velarde, Gonzalo Infante G. y Gonzalo Leiva R.

(This report analyses the situation of sexual health, reproductive health and human right in Chile up to 2016, after 28 years of transformation and socio-cultural disputes with respect to these issues. It was edited by Claudia Dides, Executive Director of Miles, and Constance Fernández of the Miles research team, and includes theoretical contributions from Leo Arenas, Jennifer Duran, Eduardo Soto, Marissa Velarde, Gonzalo Infante G and Gonzalo Leiva R.)

Chapter 5 is on abortion (pages 113-136). It opens by pointing out that the complete criminalisation of abortion in Chile dates from 1989 under the military dictatorship. Despite not being on the political agenda of the coalition governments since the dictatorship ended, 26 bills on abortion have been tabled in the parliament from 1991 to 2010.

According to Ministry of Health data, in 2012 the number of hospital discharges related to abortion were 30,434. Of these, 26,802 cases were women aged 20-44 years and 3,070 were adolescents aged 15-19 years. Of the total, the reasons for treatment were not specified in 7,952 cases while complications were recorded in 219 cases.

Estimates of numbers of abortions annually for the three legal grounds included in the current

abortion law reform bill, based on data from the Health Ministry for 2012, show that the ground of risk to women’s lives would cover an estimated 9,991 cases per year; the ground of fetal anomaly at less than 22 weeks of pregnancy would cover 304 to 543 cases annually, and the ground of rape would cover an estimated 1,035 cases annually.

Further sections of this chapter cover: 1) women prosecuted for abortion since 1998, when the first case was reported, 2) laws, norms and regulations related to abortion, 3) international agreements supported by Chile since 1966 on human rights, 4) norms, protocols and technical guidance, and a concluding section “By way of reflection”.

In March 2016, the Chamber of Deputies approved the law reform bill. In September 2016, the Health Committee of the Senate approved the principle of legislating. A vote in the Senate is awaited.

Source: International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion


MILES (Movement for Sexual and Reproductive Rights) denounces the detention of a Chilean woman accused of having an abortion

by Safe Abortion, Nov 25, 2016

The Movement for Sexual and Reproductive Rights (MILES) today denounced the fact that a Colombian woman of 32 years of age was detained at Antofagasta by the Sexual Crimes Brigade of the IDPS for allegedly aborting a fetus of 18 weeks. She was said to have taken three doses of misoprostol and then gone to the Medical Center North (CAN), where she was arrested and detained by the Office of the Prosecutor.

“This situation is inhumane. Women are treated like criminals because the State has been unable to regulate and facilitate the termination of pregnancy, even for women at risk of losing their lives by the absence of this care,” said MILES. “Instead of being helped, the woman was put in the pillory in public, without any concern about the deep psychological and physical unease that she must be feeling. This is a flagrant violation of her human rights.”

“The government and legislators must show the decency to adopt the pending abortion law reform, because every day that passes without this law, there are egregious abuses of women’s health and lives. The State must respond to the demands and needs of the people, the majority of whom endorse the abortion bill, as all the opinion polls show.”

SOURCE: Miles por los derechose sexuales y reproductivos, 18 November 2016 ; PHOTO

Source: International Campaign for Women's Right to Safe Abortion