A Face-Off Over Abortion in Teusaquillo

Cyclists besides the pro-choice demonstration in Teusaquillo.

During a bike tour the other day, we came upon this face-off over abortion beside the Santa Ana Church in Teusaquillo. Bizarrely and uncomfortably, the Catholic church is surrounded by women's health clinics which are notorious for offering abortions.

Abortion is prohibited in Colombia except in cases of rape, incest, when the woman's life is in danger or when the fetus has a severe abnormality.

In recent days, an organization called '40 Days for Life' has been holding an anti-abortion vigil beside the church. On this day, pro-choice activists held their own demonstration across the street.

Handing out flyers.

An active civil society is a sign of a healthy society. But the influence of religion in a supposedly secular nation makes me worry a bit.

A little guitar music always contributes to a protest.

The anti-abortion protest beside the Santa Ana Church.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Sexual Violence as a Weapon in Colombia's Conflict

Sexual abuses have been in the news not only because of the endless parade of headline-making sex crimes, often targeting children, but also because of revelations of wholesale sexual attacks being used as a weapon of war by Colombia's various armed groups. 

A recent report by the Centro de Memoria titled 'The War Written on the Body' counted more than 15,000 sexual attacks amidst Colombia's armed conflict, committed by armed groups of all types, including the official military. That number, of course was surely a huge undercount, since most such crimes are never reported.

The report included testimonies by women and girls recounting attacks by armed groups, often as punishment for supposed disobedience. One woman, for example, had helped her children escape from being recruited as FARC fighters, for which misdeed the guerrillas gang raped her. Other women were targeted with attacks as warnings to or punishment against their husbands, for example for not paying protection money to the armed groups. 

One FARC leader, Raul Reyes, who was killed in 2008 by a Colombian military bombing of his camp in Ecuador, kept an escort of female guerrillas, some as young as 10 or 11, whom he sexually abused.

A graph shows numbers of reported cases of sexual abuse
related to Colombia's armed conflict. Cases
peaked in 2002 and 2014.

A young girl recruited by the guerrillas described in the Centro Memoria's report how the guerrillas arranged newly arrived girls up in two rows: the virgins on one side, the rest on the other. The virgins were given to the guerrilla commanders for their recreation, while lower-echelon guerrillas had to make do with the others.

Female guerrillas who became pregnant were usually forced to have abortions or had their newborns taken from them.

A conservative politician calls for
life sentences for child abusers.

Sex crimes are also in the news because some conservative politicians are advocating for capital punishment or life in prison for child rapists. That has many asking why the demobilized guerrillas - many of whom committed sex crimes, as well as murder, kidnapping and forced displacement - should get off with little more than a symbolic punishment, and even be allowed to hold political office.

And I also wonder why the wave of accusations (almost all of them certainly true) of sexual misbehavior against prominent men in the U.S. has not spread to other places, particularly Latin America. After all, in a nation like Colombia where many men feel entitled to make sexual comments to women on the street, and where machismo culture is strong, is it credible that much worse things don't happen in the privacy of offices and studios?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A Lesson from Abortion Protesters

Abortion opponents have been holding this protest/vigil recently beside the Iglesia Santa Ana in Teusaquillo, which is surrounded by women's clinics with a reputation for providing mostly illicit abortions.

A women's clinic across
from the Santa Ana church.

In the past, I've seen anti-abortions protests outside the Palacio de Justicia and Congreso, when they have considered abortion law. Colombia's abortion law, while relatively liberal for the region, is still quite restrictive (abortion is permitted only in cases of rape, incest, when the woman's life is endangered and when the fetus is inviable, and often hard to obtain even in those cases). Abortion rights supporters say that, either despite or because of the law, nearly all of the procedures performed in Colombia are done illegally.

So, it always seemed a bit absurd to me to see the protesters at the centers of lawmaking, when the law was obviously so irrelevent to reality.

This is the first time I've seen protesters at the of abortions. Yet, by protesting here, they're also underlining the fact that abortion prohibitions feed an outlaw, and often dangerous, illicit abortion industry.

The campaign is named '40 Days for Life.'

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Decision is Yours?

Profamilia, the well-known family planning and reproductive health organization, says it only wants girls and women to know that Colombian law gives them the right to an abortion in several specific circumstances.

But abortion opponents allege that the NGO's latest campaign, 'La decisión es tuya' (The decision is yours), on posters on Medellin's subway, is rather an invitation to abort.

Image from Twitter: @Cluna85 

In 2006, the Constitutional Court legalized abortion in cases where the pregnancy endangers the woman's life, when the fetus has a severe malformation or when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.

However, despite the relative frequency of these circumstances, no more than 1,500 legal abortions have been performed in a single year, 2010, and only 26 in 2012 and '13, according to the minister of health. That means that more than 99.9% of abortions performed in Colombia are illegal, according to the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute - and many of those are unsafe. As a result, more than 90,000 women seek medical help every year for post-abortion complications, according to Guttmacher.

But does Profamilia's campaign encourage women to seek abortions only in the legal circumstances? While Profamilia officials insist that's true, critics say it encourages abortion-on-demand and have called for Medellin's subway system to remove the posters. The subway has refused.

Profamilia's website sets a broad definition for the health exception to the abortion prohibition, including cases where the pregnancy "affects mental health." Another abortion provider, Orientame, goes even further on its website, asserting that "anguish, depression, insomnia or other emotional or physical affects," constitute legal justification to abort. I've got news for Orientame: I'm not pregnant nor ever have been, but have at times experienced anguish, depression, insomnia and various other emotional problems.

Legalizing abortion is a positive thing, if only because when prohibited abortion happens anyway, just in more dangerous conditions. But, in a mostly conservative, highly Catholic, society, abortion activists should be cautious about pushing the limits of abortion rights for fear of producing a backlash.



By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Abortion's Back in the News

Opponents of abortion marched the other day thru downtown commemorating - and mourning - the eighth anniversary of Colombia's legalization of abortion in a few narrow circumstances: rape, incest, when the woman's life is in danger and when the fetus has a severe deformity.

Abortion law returned to the news early this month when the legislature passed a law expanding abortion to women who are victims of the country's armed conflict. In practical terms, I'm not sure how this expands the right, since these women presumably are victims of sexual violence. Or, perhaps they are not victims of physical violence, but acted under duress and threats.

Abortion opponents say that the procedure both kills babies and harms the mother physically and psychologically. Abortion rights advocates say that many girls and women who have the right to abort are not able to legally because of obstacles from courts and doctors. And, legal or not, abortion will happen anyway, they argue.

According to the Gutmacher Institute, which supports legalized abortion, some 400,000 abortions are performed annually in Colombia, of which only 322, or less than one tenth of one percent, are legal abortions.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A Christian Army on Plaza Bolivar

Religious activists rally today on Plaza Bolivar.

'Marriage is a man and a woman.'

Religious believers rallied on Plaza Bolivar this afternoon in opposition to abortion and gay marriage. Earlier in the day, gay rights activists had staged a same-sex kiss-a-thon in the plaza to protest an insulting statement by a congressman who called being gay 'a problem.'

Congress is considering reforming laws on several hot-button issues: regulating euthenasia, expanding abortion rights and creating same-sex unions with many of the same rights as marriage, altho they would have a different name.

Participants in the same-sex kiss-a-thon also on Plaza Bolivar earlier in the day.

A women's prayer circle. The signs they are wearing denounce abortion and same-sex marriage.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Marching for Life

Abortion opponents marched down Ave. Septima today, calling for a prohibition on the practice. Abortion is legal only in cases of rape, incest, when the fetus carries a severe abnomality or when the pregnancy endangers the woman's life, but illicit abortions are widely available. 

Pro-choice advocates and some legislators now want abortion legalized on demand. 

A horn vendor, who would likely also be offering his noisemakers at a pro-abortion march. 

'Abortion is a cruel death of a human being.'

 Related post:

Anti-Abortion Hypocrisy

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Anti-Abortion Hypocrisy

The Santa Ana Church in Teusaquillo and three adjoining clinics reputed for providing illicit abortions. 

One of the reputed illicit abortion clinics is
physically attached to the church. 

In the face of proposals to expand abortion rights in Colombia from four narrow cases to abortion on demand, the Catholic Church is launching a new campaign to prohibit abortion in all cases. This Sunday's mass in churches nationwide is to include denunciations of abortion and appeals to defend the lives of the unborn.

I consider opposition to abortion to be a respectable and principled position, altho I fundamentally disagree with it. Abortion opponents, who believe that a fetus is a human live from the moment of conception have, reasonably, compared their position to the battle against slavery.

A fourth clinic, circled in red here, is across
the street from the church entrance. 

For someone like me who doesn't believe that a mass of cells can be compared to a person, that argument falls apart. And, even when it's prohibited, abortion, like illegal drugs and prostitution, happen anyway, making one ask whether the prohibition does more harm than good.

That is particularly clear in Bogotá's Teusaquillo neighborhood, where the Santa Ana Church is surrounded by women's health clinics with a reputation for providing illicit abortions.

I've never understood how these clinics keep operating untroubled. Their activities are an open secret among young bogotanos, and Internet searches bring them up. Is it corruption? Official apathy? A deliberate policy of tolerance, like the nearby prostitution 'tolerance zone'?

Whatever the reason, it's certain that the Catholic Church must know about what's going on across the street from and right behind the Iglesia Santa Ana. So, why doesn't the church begin its anti-abortion campaign across the street from the Santa Ana Church? The fact that it turns a blind eye to these places reveals a fundamental hypocrisy.

Abortion opponents know perfectly well that prohibition always generates a black market, and that's almost impossible to stop. So, they're taking the self-righteous route - they want to be able to pat themselves on the back and receive plaudits from the Vatican by passing an abortion ban in Colombia. But they want to save themselves the difficult and unrewarding work of dealing with a real world, in which laws mean little

Incidentally, I'm not writing from hearsay.

A couple of years ago, when I was still a journalist, a friend and I entered several of these clinics and she told them she was seeking an abortion (she had in fact had an abortion in one of these places a few years before). All of them offered us an abortion, and the doctor in one assured us that 'Lots of women had one abortion after another, with no problems.' But, not long before that, a woman had died in one of the clinics from a botched abortion. While she hemorraghed, the clinic staff refused to call a hospital so as not to get themselves into trouble. Instead, they called her family to come get her. But by the time the relatives arrived, the woman had died.

That particular clinic was shut down, but reopened. I'm not sure whether they still perform abortions there.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The A.G. Eats His Anti-Abortion Words

Ordoñez eats his words. They must have tasted bitter. 

Colombia's arch-conservative Attorney General Alejandro Ordoñez may have taken his opposition to abortion rights just a bit too far for his own good.

Ordoñez, a staunch Catholic, is a fierce opponent of abortion. So he understandably disliked having to carry out a 2006 court decision permitting abortion in four cases: when the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest, when the pregnancy endangers the woman's life or when the fetus has a severe malformation.

So, Ordoñez and two of his assistants took measures which, according to pro-choice activists and a Colombian court, were intended to illegaly restrict women's rights to legal abortions and even contraception.

Ordoñez's office issued communiques declaring that the 'day after pill' was abortive, that an entire hospital could refuse to perform abortions based on conscientious objection (even tho the court decision gives that right only to individual doctors), and had described sexual rights education campaigns as 'pro-abortion campaigns.'

Abortion-rights supporters sued, the court agreed with them, and the other day Ordoñez and two of his assistants had to eat their words by retracting and rectifying their statements. (Ordoñez is appealing this latest court ruling.)

But Ordoñez's high profile humiliation appears to be producing much broader impact. In the days following it, there's been increasing talk of legalizing abortion on demand, which would put Colombia on the very forefront of abortion rights in Latin America. As another part of the court's ruling, the government is evaluating whether public health programs should cover the cost of misoprostol, an ulcer medicine which is widely used to induce abortions.

On Friday, Senate President Roy Barreras, a medical doctor, surprised many by saying "I have no doubt that interrupting a pregnancy is not a crime."

"The crime of abortion which is now in the penal code is not only antiquated and unjust, but highly improbable," he added.

Barreras claimed that it was medically impossible to prove whether an abortion had been deliberate or a spontaeneous miscarriage.

The fact that the abortion prohibition is a charade is made evident by a visit to the Santa Ana Church in Bogotá's Teusaquillo neighborhood. The church is surrounded by health clinics for pregnant women which are widely known to provide illegal abortions. (Google abortion in Bogotá and their names will come up on public forums.)

When the Constitutional Court decriminalized abortion in those narrow cases in 2006, it based its decision on Colombia's high rate of maternal mortality. But since then relatively few legal abortions have been performed, in part because of the strong stigma still attached abortion and in part because of obstacles created by Ordoñez and others like him.




By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Four More Years, and Forty Years Backwards?

Four more years, and forty years into the past?

Just two years into his term, there's already speculation on whether Pres. Juan Manuel Santos will run for reelection - or be permitted to by the Constitution. In any case, it looks to be a challenge, as the president's popularity has dipped below 50% in the face of increased guerrilla violence.

However, another, more immediate, reelection campaign has received much less notice, but deserves the attention of all those concerned about civil liberties.

Attorney General Alejandro Ordóñez, who's held the office since 2008, has begun campaigning for another term, to be decided by a vote by the members of the Senate. His current terms ends with the new year. Some observers are asking whether the many members of Congress who have relatives working in national or regional attorney general's offices should be barred from voting on Ordóñez's bid.

But there's a deeper question of whether or not Ordóñez is the appropriate person for the job - at least in this century.

Colombia's quite progressive 1991 Constitution changed it from a Catholic to a secular nation, but Ordóñez doesn't appear to have noticed.

Every one of Ordóñez's positions I've heard of, from abortion, to gay rights, to drug policy, conforms to the most conservative wing of the Catholic Church, Ordóñez's faith. Look at his repeated efforts to prohibit abortion in all cases, and to block women who have the right to a legal abortion; take his cruel effort to reverse a court decision permitting a New York Times journalist who happened to be gay from adopting two Colombian orphans; or his close-minded opposition to Bogotá Mayor Gustavo Petro's proposal to provide drugs and support to addicts.

Certainly, Ordóñez has every right to his religion, which deserves all our respect. But turning that faith into public policy, as he appears to do, is wrong and threatens to push Colombia back decades, and leave it out of step with the rest of the world.

By all appearances, Ordoñez, who is 68, is a talented man who is not corrupt and has done his job well on purely law enforcement matters. But attorney general is not the right position for such an ideologically-driven person. Instead, Ordóñez should take his energy and talents elsewhere, such as into Congress, where he can push for his religious principles just as long as his voice and his constituents will allow him.


By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Anti-Abortion Fantasies

Would a total ban on abortion....

Abortion opponents demonstrated on Plaza Bolivar today outside Parliament, where a congressional committee was expected to vote in favor of changing the Constitution to define human life as beginning at conception - thus prohibiting abortion in all cases.

...mean even more illegal
business for places like this
'Center for Orientation for Women'?

Even if the bill does get out of committee it's not likely to become law - it would require eight positive votes by Congress, where leftist parties oppose it. Now, thanks to a Constitutional Court ruling six years ago, abortion is legal in four cases: when the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest, when the pregnancy endangers the woman's life or when the fetus has a severe malformation.

Even so, only a tiny proportion of abortions in Colombia are legal. The overwhelming majority are carried out by clinics which operate illegaly but in plain sight. And that, to me, is the real point here. Even if I did believe that a recently fertilized egg was a human being - which I don't - I'd oppose a complete ban on abortion when it's so obvious that such prohibitions only mean that more women end up having dangerous, illegal abortions.

Delayed menstruation? We can fix that! Painless, quick and private treatment. These classified ads in El Espacio, a sex-and-blood tabloid newspaper, are almost certainly offering abortions. 

This women's health clinic is physically connected to the
Catholic Church. 

Around the Santa Ana Church in Bogotá's stately and historic Teusaquillo neighborhood there must be at least a half dozen 'women's health clinics' offering ultrasounds and other services. The clinics do offer these services, but they also have the reputation of being abortion mills. In fact, years ago I entered several of them as a journalist together with a female friend, who said she was seeking an abortion. All of the clinics offered us abortions, and an apparent doctor in one assured my friend that the procedure wasn't dangerous because 'lots of women had one abortion after another there with no ill effects.'

Remember, you too were once a fetus. 

That's a lie, of course, and the fact that no government authority requires the clinics to educate about birth control techniques is yet another reason why abortion should be legal and regulated. I'm confident that if abortion were completely legal and abortion providers were requred to educate women and girls about birth control, abortion in Colombia would not only be safer, but also less common.

I once tried to ask the priest of Santa Ana Church what he thot about the fact that his church was surrounded by illegal abortion clinics. He denied knowing anything about them.

Intestinal troubles? Impotency? Frigidity? Ulcers? Menstrual troubles? Call this phone no. on a power pole in Teusaqullo and get guaranteed treatment for all of them!

Update: the proposed legislation died in committee!

Santa Ana Church, popular for funerals and surrounded by clinics notorious for providing illegal abortions. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Abortion Un-Rights in Colombia

A pro-choice protest.

In case anybody had any doubts about why so few legal abortions have been performed in Colombia, despite a six-year-old law legalizing the procedure in certain cases, Colombia's attorney general recently gave us the answer.

The story involves a woman from near Villavicencio who claimed that her pregnancy threatened her life according to doctors. That's one of the situations, along with rape, incest or a grave malformation of the fetus, when abortion is legal. The 24-year-old woman went to several local hospitals, but the doctors either demanded more proof that her pregnancy was life threatening or refused to perform the abortion by claiming concientious objection, according to news reports. The law gives a doctor a personal right to refuse to perform an abortion on grounds of conscience, but requires a hospital to find someone or another hospital to perform the procedure for a woman who has a right to abort.

The woman sought an order from a local court authorizing the abortion, but was refused.

Finally, she went to one of the many clandestine abortion clinics and ended her pregnancy there.

'I abort, you abort, we all keep quiet.'

Hers is a common story. A recent study by the Guttmacher Institute calculated that in 2008 some 400,000 abortions were performed in Colombia - of which only 322 were legal. Of those women who aborted illegaly, sometimes in dangerous, fly-by-night clinics, 132,000 suffered complications, according to the study. Of those, only 11 percent received the post-abortion treatment they were entitled to.

But this woman's story has a jarring postcript. Her appeal continued making its way up thru Colombia's court system, until the Constitutional Court ruled in her favor - that the Villavicencio hospitals had not carried out required tests to determine whether the pregnancy threatened the woman's health.

Then, court officials telephoned the woman, only to learn that she was no longer pregnant - and hadn't given birth, either. The unavoidable conclusion: she'd had an abortion.

Now, Alejandro Ordoñez, Colombia's very anti-abortion attorney general, has ordered a parliamentary commission to investigate the Constitutional Court judges for having failed to denounce the woman for aborting. In Ordoñez's view, two of the magistrates are accesories to the illegal abortion.

This is all despite the fact that the woman in all probability had a legal right to abort, but was denied her right by doctors and hospitals.

Ordoñez, in fact, wants to roll back Colombian women's very limited right to an abortion. That's a startling example of blindness by ideology. As the Guttmacher study showed, the existing abortion limits have done little to actually prevent abortions, instead making the procedure clandestine and dangerous.

Other studies demonstrate why the best way to reduce abortion isn't banning it, but educating people about constraception. Mind-blowingly, more than half, and perhaps as many as two-thirds, of all pregnancies in Colombia are unplanned. Reducing that number would do more than anything else to cut the number of abortions, legal or illegal, in Colombia. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours