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

What do the Madres Comunitarias Want?

Madres Comunitarias protesting today on the steps of Congress on Plaza Bolivar. 

 The Madres Comunitarias, women who take care of neighborhood children in their homes, have been protesting for months. But, during the last several days, many have gone on strike, and today groups of madres occupied churches across the country.

Nationwide, there are almost 80,000 Madres Comunitarias, who are employees of the ICBF, the Colombian Institute for Famly Wellbeing. They turn their homes into neighborhood day cares, generally in poor areas. But they complain that their pay is poor, while their responsibilities are great, that their jobs are informal and that they do not receive pensions, even after decades of work.

Blowing the horn for Madres' rights.

Santander is pesent!

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Dancing for the Disappeared

This theatre troupe, called Teatro Peya, carried out this dance/acting on the pedestrianized stretch of La Septima this afternoon.

The performance, in which the actors cried out phrases such as 'Where is he?' 'You'd better be quiet!' and 'Be careful', and approached passers-by and appealed to them to 'Help find my brother!' or yelled out 'I am a woman!', got a lot of attention. But I'm not sure how well the observers got its message. The actors wanted to bring attention to the problem of 'disappeared people' and to the role of women, this being International Women's Life.

The theatre group also does circus, puppet shows and entertains hospitalized children.

'Do I have rights?'

'Mujer'

Can you help me find him?

The scream.

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 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