{"id":80393,"date":"2022-01-04T12:00:22","date_gmt":"2022-01-04T17:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=80393"},"modified":"2025-08-19T09:37:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T13:37:11","slug":"abortions-miscarriages-jail-time","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/abortions-miscarriages-jail-time\/","title":{"rendered":"In Latin America, not only abortions but miscarriages can lead to jail time"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n In Latin America, not only abortions but miscarriages can lead to jail time\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

This article is republished<\/a> from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. All photos provided by The Conversation<\/a> from various sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Georgina and I are drinking coffee on a rainy winter evening in San Jos\u00e9, Costa Rica. She\u2019s telling me about her abortion, \u201cWhen it was over, I felt a lot of things.\u2026 But the most overwhelming feeling was relief. I was so relieved that it was over and that I wasn\u2019t pregnant anymore. I was so relieved to be alive and not pregnant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abortion is criminalized throughout Latin America, but Central American countries have some of the strictest abortions laws in the world<\/a>. El Salvador has been especially notorious, with abortion banned in all cases and prison sentences if caught \u2014 you can even go to prison for having a miscarriage or a stillbirth<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the severity of laws throughout the region, an estimated 6.5 million abortions<\/a> take place every year, and at least 10 per cent of maternal deaths<\/a> can be directly attributed to unsafe abortion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As debates about abortion are heating up in the U.S. once again, with an almost complete abortion ban in place in Texas since September<\/a> and Supreme Court hearings that have Roe vs. Wade<\/em><\/a> hanging in the balance, it\u2019s worth paying attention to the hard fought struggles over abortion in other parts of the world where, like in the U.S., religion plays a central role in politics and public life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A \u201ccrime against life\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In Costa Rica, where I have done research on gender and sexuality for the past sixteen years, abortion laws are not quite as draconian. But Costa Rica has the dubious distinction of being one of the world\u2019s last confessional states<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country has a state religion, Roman Catholicism, meaning the Catholic church has an especially prominent place in public institutions like schools and hospitals. The church regularly intervenes in public debates around a variety of issues \u2014 like in vitro fertilization<\/a>, euthanasia<\/a>, same-sex marriage<\/a> and abortion<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A woman holds a placard that reads \u2018Neither Dead Nor or in Prison,\u2019 in Spanish, during an abortion-rights demonstration on the Day for Decriminalization of Abortion in Latin America march, in Mexico City, on Sept. 28, 2021.<\/span>
\n(AP Photo\/Ginnette Riquelme)<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Costa Rica\u2019s 1970 penal code criminalizes abortion as a \u201ccrime against life.\u201d<\/a> It is punished through jail sentences ranging between six months and three years for having an abortion, and between six months and 10 years for providing or aiding in securing an abortion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is called therapeutic abortion, or abortion meant to save the life or health of a pregnant person<\/a>, is not criminalized, but rarely practiced. It took a ruling from the Inter-American Human Rights Commission to force the country to finally establish guidelines for therapeutic abortion, but they include many complex restrictions<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abortion research in Costa Rica<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It is widely accepted that criminalizing abortion does not make abortions less frequent, it just makes them less safe<\/a>. What little research there is on abortion in Costa Rica is very dated. Activists primarily rely on a 2007 study<\/a> that suggested 27,000 abortions took place in Costa Rica each year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past three years, I have interviewed people who have had clandestine abortions<\/a> in Costa Rica. Some had their abortions 20 years ago, others, like Georgina, had their abortions the week before I interviewed them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the most notable findings of my research so far is the huge change that came with the development of medical abortion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I interviewed Emma, a lawyer, at her workplace.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cI found out I was pregnant in 1996 and I went to see a gynecologist that everyone knew did abortions. It was a fancy private clinic in Los Yoses. He said to me \u2018I can\u2019t give you general anesthetic, so you\u2019re going to have to keep very still. If you move and I perforate your uterus, you\u2019ll end up in the hospital and then we\u2019ll both end up in jail.\u2019 It\u2019s not like that anymore, thank god. Now you can just get some pills, it\u2019s so much easier.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Emma is right, abortion is changing in Costa Rica and in Latin America \u2014 networks of committed volunteers help pregnant people access mifepristone and misoprostol (abortion pills) in a variety of ways, leading to significantly reduced complications<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Younger women who have had abortions recently told about me about their deep gratitude to the strangers that helped them. Xiomara, a 22-year-old university student said:
\n\u201cI paid a little extra for the pills, because I could. Because you know they won\u2019t deny them to anyone who needs them, even if they don\u2019t have money. I was so glad that I wasn\u2019t going to be pregnant anymore. It meant so much to me, that people I had never even met were helping me end my pregnancy, that I paid extra so that it would help cover someone else\u2019s abortion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n Abortion-rights activists react after lawmakers approved a bill that legalizes abortion, outside congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Dec. 30, 2020.<\/span>
\n (AP Photo\/Natacha Pisarenko)<\/span><\/span>
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Birth no matter what<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

All of the people I interviewed about their clandestine abortions expressed relief at not being pregnant anymore and gratitude to the network of strangers that made it possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the debates about the technical guidelines<\/a> for therapeutic abortion, it became clear that many people felt strongly that pregnant people should be allowed to die rather than provided with a safe abortion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I interviewed Paola Vega, a deputy in the Costa Rican parliament and one of only three openly pro-choice elected officials, she said:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cThe whole conversation has become radicalized. People actually argue that if a woman is dying while she\u2019s in labour, she has to give birth no matter what happens because it\u2019s God\u2019s will. She has to give birth, and if she dies and if the baby dies, well, it\u2019s God\u2019s will. The whole discussion has gotten so much worse, so much more radical.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

A wave of young activists<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The wave of young activists across Latin America<\/a> who have renewed demands for access to safe, legal and free abortion has provided new hope and energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Often fighting under the slogan educaci\u00f3n sexual para decidir, anticonceptivos para no abortar, aborto legal para no morir<\/em> (sex education to be able to choose, contraceptives to not have to abort, legal abortion so we don\u2019t die), young feminists have been at the forefront of a movement that is broad based and expansive<\/a>, including anyone with a uterus and employing gender-inclusive language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strengthened by social media that has allowed information<\/a> to be shared in real time, activists across Latin America have celebrated and gained energy from triumphs like the full decriminalization of abortion in Argentina in 2020<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Costa Rica, corruption scandals<\/a> and the pandemic<\/a> have turned attention away from abortion, but with elections coming up in February, all the presidential candidates have been asked about their positions<\/a> on the subject \u2014 putting the issue on the political agenda in a way that it has never been before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, people like Mariana will continue to access abortions clandestinely:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cThe person I got the pills from said I needed to take them and have someone with me. But I couldn\u2019t tell anyway, I didn\u2019t want my boyfriend to know, so I took the pills alone. But you know what? They called me, I don\u2019t know who it was, a volunteer I guess. She called and stayed on the phone with me for a long time, and then called me again a few times to check on me. So it turns out I wasn\u2019t alone. And I felt a lot of love from that stranger on the phone, I wasn\u2019t alone.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

—
\nCarleton Newsroom<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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