More than 25 NGOs intensify their fight to legalize abortion in Venezuela

by Lance Vaughn
September 10, 2022

Some 25 Venezuelan NGOs, grouped in the Ruta Verde platform, intensify their fight to legalize abortion with the collection against the clock of 21,000 signatures that must be attached to the bill on sexual and reproductive rights that they will take to Parliament, which will have to debate if it advances until become normative.

The platform intends for there to be a sexual and reproductive education that provides knowledge about contraceptive methods, abortion in different cases and the options that women have to face unwanted pregnancies.

Continued; https://www.ruetir.com/2022/09/10/more-than-25-ngos-intensify-their-fight-to-legalize-abortion-in-venezuela/

Venezuelan women lose access to contraception, and control of their lives

By Julie Turkewitz and Isayen Herrera, New York Times
February 20, 2021

SAN DIEGO DE LOS ALTOS, Venezuela — The moment Johanna Guzmán, 25, discovered she was going to have her sixth child, she began to sob, crushed by the idea of bringing another life into a nation in such decay.

For years, as Venezuela spiraled deeper into an economic crisis, she and her husband had scoured clinics and pharmacies for any kind of birth control, usually in vain. They had a third child. A fourth. A fifth.

Continued: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/02/20/world/venezuelan-women-lose-access-contraception-control-their-lives/

Venezuela Women’s Groups Halt Abortion Services After Activist Arrest

Jan. 11, 2021
BY SARAH KINOSIAN AND Mariela Nava

CARACAS (Reuters) - Women's activists in Venezuela have largely halted unofficial abortion services after the arrest of a university professor who helped a 13-year-old girl to end a pregnancy, according to 10 women's rights advocates interviewed by Reuters.

Police in October raided the home of Vannesa Rosales in the northwestern state of Merida and arrested her. Her lawyer says she will likely be charged with inducing an abortion and conspiring to commit a crime for her role in helping the girl terminate a pregnancy after being raped.

Continued: https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2021-01-11/venezuela-womens-groups-halt-abortion-services-after-activist-arrest

11.01.2021

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Venezuela: Judicial harassment against woman rights defender Vannesa Rosales

Venezuela: Judicial harassment against woman
rights defender Vannesa Rosales

23 December 2020
Front Line Defenders

On 22 December 2020 the lawyers of woman human rights defender Vannesa Rosales
filed a constitutional appeal before the Court of Appeals of Merida. In the
appeal her lawyers requested that the authorities comply with the rights and
constitutional guarantees of the defender, in particular that she be allowed to
be free pending any legal process against her, and that she face charges only
based on her actions, not on her advocacy for women’s rights.

Continued: https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/sites/default/files/venezuela_-_ua_-_vannesa_rosales_-_23_dec_2020_en.pdf

23.12.2020

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prosecuting women for abortion

A heartbreaking sign of Venezuela’s deepening child welfare crisis

Baranyai: A heartbreaking sign of Venezuela's deepening child welfare crisis

Robin Baranyai, Special to Postmedia News
Updated: March 6, 2020

The graphic is straightforward but shocking: a red circle crossed through with a line — the universal symbol for nope — imposed over a stick figure standing next to a trash bin. Dangling upside down above the garbage is a small stick figure in a diaper.

“Prohibido botar beb(C)s,” the text reads: “Dumping babies is forbidden.”

Continued: https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/baranyai-a-heartbreaking-sign-of-venezuelas-deepening-child-welfare-crisis

06.03.2020

“These are basic women’s needs”: Treating Venezuelan women in Colombia

“These are basic women’s needs”: Treating Venezuelan women in Colombia

Report from Médecins Sans Frontières
Published on 27 Sep 2019

Mirla Milagro remembers when she and her children ate three meals a day in Venezuela. She gave manicures and cleaned houses, and they got by. Their medical needs were all covered by the Venezuelan health system.

When the clinics started experiencing stock-outs of medicines and supplies, volunteer doctors from Cuba stepped in. But after a while, there seemed to be no medicine anywhere, and if they were available, they were too expensive. Milagro’s income also dried up. Food became difficult to get. “If we had breakfast, we’d have nothing for lunch,” she said. “If we had lunch, there would be no dinner. Sometimes we’d eat something at noon and leave a little for later. It really got bad.”

Continued: https://reliefweb.int/report/colombia/these-are-basic-women-s-needs-treating-venezuelan-women-colombia

Venezuela – This Woman Performed Her Own Abortion — And Was Lucky To Survive

This Woman Performed Her Own Abortion — And Was Lucky To Survive
After barely surviving two illegal abortions, Beatriz sells birth control on the black market to help other women in Venezuela, as the economic and political crisis deepens.

Karla Zabludovsky, BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on February 28, 2019

CARACAS, Venezuela — With a flick of the wrist, Beatriz pulled out two strips of birth control pills from her top.

Contraceptives are in short supply in Venezuela, with most pharmacies sold out, so it’s largely up to black marketeers like Beatriz to supply women with them. And despite their exorbitant price tag — on the street, $1 gets you a month’s birth control, but that represents a week’s salary — the pills remain highly sought after.

Continued: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/karlazabludovsky/venezuelas-crisis-is-pushing-women-to-have-illegal-abortions

Latin America’s fight to legalise abortion: the key battlegrounds

Latin America's fight to legalise abortion: the key battlegrounds
After Argentina rejected a bill to allow abortion in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy, hopes of reform now rest elsewhere

Annie Kelly
Thu 9 Aug 2018

An estimated 6.5 million abortions take place across Latin America each year. Three-quarters of these procedures are unlawful, often performed in unsafe illegal clinics or at home.

Of 33 countries across Latin America and the Caribbean, only Cuba, Uruguay and Guyana permit elective abortions. Women also have the right to choose in Mexico City. Elsewhere, however, the right to an abortion is severely restricted, with terminations often permitted in cases of rape, or if the pregnancy will endanger the life of the mother. Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Suriname all have a complete ban on abortion.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/aug/09/latin-america-fight-to-legalise-abortion-argentina-brazil-chile-venezuela-uruguay-colombia-el-salvador-peru

Even sex is in crisis in Venezuela, where contraceptives are growing scarce

Even sex is in crisis in Venezuela, where contraceptives are growing scarce
By Mariana Zuñiga and Anthony Faiola
November 28, 2017

CARACAS, Venezuela — Yorlenis Gutierrez, a 28-year-old mother, spent months vainly scouring pharmacies for a drug whose scarcity is complicating her sex life and those of countless other Venezuelans. In a country beset by shortages, this is one of the most difficult: the disappearance of contraceptives.

When she couldn’t renew her supply of birth-control pills, Gutierrez and her husband made a choice. Long-term abstinence was not an option, they agreed.

Continued at source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/even-sex-is-in-crisis-in-venezuela-where-contraceptives-are-growing-scarce/2017/11/27/5d970d86-b452-11e7-9b93-b97043e57a22_story.html?undefined=&wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1

Women the heart of Venezuela’s revolution

Women the heart of Venezuela’s revolution

Coral Wynter
Barquisimeto, Thursday, October 19, 2017
...
Abortion rights

[Women's equality activist Elvira] Dorante said: “With respect to the issue of abortion, we address it in all spaces. In Venezuela, abortion is illegal under all circumstances. The current situation where we have no access to contraception, especially since 2015 due to the fraudulent actions of pharmaceutical companies, has made us have to confront this issue even more.

“We have seen abortion occur in places where we’d never imagined they would occur. Given the current blockades on contraception and medicine, abortion is both much more common and more dangerous.

Continued at source: https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/women-heart-venezuela-revolution