The Law for Reproductive Health would have made it legal for women to obtain an abortion during the first three months of pregnancy. The bill also included provisions for sex education in the schools and free distribution of contraceptives, and required hospitals to perform the procedure free of charge.

Existing legislation allows abortion only in cases of rape or when a women’s life is in danger. The National Coalition in Defense of Reproductive Health, a group in Uruguay supporting a women’s right to choose abortion, said polls showed that 63 percent of the population supported the pro-choice legislation.

The only countries in Latin America and the Caribbean where abortion is legal are Cuba, Guyana, and Puerto Rico.

A sign of the growing support for the right to choose was a public statement issued by the Medical Union of Uruguay backing the Law for Reproductive Health. The group had opposed the decriminalization of abortion for decades. Its statement said that one in three maternal deaths between 1997 and 2001 were due to complications from abortions performed illegally and pointed out that working-class women are the most affected.

Statistics show that 52,000 births take place each year in Uruguay, a country of 3.3 million people. Between 30,000 and 50,000 pregnancies are terminated.

A few hundred backers of the abortion rights bill rallied outside the senate to show support for the legislation. They held signs saying, “My Choice,” “Catholic Women for the Right to Choose,” and “Contraceptives! So we don’t have to abort; Legalize abortion! So we won’t die.”

Six members of the U.S. House of Representatives who are against a woman’s right to choose had faxed letters urging Uruguay’s senators not to “make the same costly mistake,” referring to the decriminalization of abortion in the United States in 1973. Rep. Chris Smith, Republican from New Jersey, said, “Lawmakers have a duty to talk to each other on human rights.”

Uruguayan senator Reynaldo Gargano, a sponsor of the abortion rights bill, called the action “an act of gross meddling.” Supporters of abortion rights said they are planning to push for a similar law next year.  
 
Chilean Congress approves divorce
Three days after the vote in the Uruguayan senate, Chilean president Ricardo Lagos signed into law a bill legalizing divorce in Chile—one of the few countries in the world where divorce had been banned by law. The previous law allowed a costly church annulment of marriage. Reflecting the growing involvement of women in the labor market, and thus their increasing independence from spouses for survival, many married couples would separate and live with their companions. This trend is reflected in the fact that 40 percent of children in Chile today are born from unmarried parents. The new law goes into effect in November.

At the same time, with much criticism from the Catholic Church, the Chilean Congress also voted to legalize the “morning-after” pill or Plan B. The Catholic Church organized a rally of several hundred in front of the presidential palace to oppose the bill. About two dozen college students, mostly women, organized a counter protest to back the bill.

In response to criticism from the Vatican, Chilean presidential spokesperson Francisco Vidal said May 4 that “while respecting the Church, consideration should be given that we must govern for the 15 million Chileans.”

The government has distributed 35,000 doses of the pill. Debate is now taking place across the country on whether the government will allow mayors opposing the pill to stop its distribution. At the same time, support for decriminalizing abortion is also growing. Several politicians have announced they are preparing such a bill.

While Lagos’s Socialist Party government tries to portray itself as a defender of women’s rights, its effort to gut the Maternity Law is an attack on the rights of working-class women. It has put forward proposals that would eliminate maternity leave from work and limit women’s ability to receive emergency leave to only the care of sick children under the age of one. The current legislation permits women to arrive late to work and leave a half hour early if no childcare is provided for by the company, and the boss has to pay transportation. These provisions would be eliminated if the Lagos government gets its way.

CUT, the national trade union federation, has come out against amending this law and has included this in its list of demands for a general strike planned for July 29.

In a telephone interview, Patricia Coñomán, president of the garment workers union Contextil, said the government is trying to force women “to work up to the ninth month of pregnancy and practically deny any leave after birth. They also want to end the present law that forces the employer to give women a half hour paid leave in the morning and afternoon to pick-up children from school.”  
 
Abortion battle rages in Argentina
In Argentina large rallies have taken place over the last year to back a bill decriminalizing abortion.

During a recent trip by Argentine officials to the Vatican, the pope approved of the deal signed by the Peronist government of Néstor Kirchner with the International Monetary Fund on the country’s foreign debt, but expressed his stern opposition to any steps to legalize abortion. Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa, who was part of the delegation, said in an interview with Pagina12, “I repeated the words of President Néstor Kirchner’s wife, that our country is not one that practices abortion.”

Supporters of abortion rights, however, are pointing out that such statements are false. A growing number of women obtain abortions, they say, and keeping it illegal simply results in the death of more women. In an interview with Buenos Aires daily El Clarín, Miriam Sonatti of the Movement of Women of the Left, said, “In Buenos Aires province a women dies every 13 days because of an illegal abortion…. These are statistics due to poverty. In Argentina there are one million pregnancies a year and about 600,000 births—which means that about 40 percent of pregnancies are aborted. In the last seven years, the number of women admitted to public hospitals due to complications from abortions has increased more than 47 percent.”

In response to the growing pressure from mass mobilizations for women’s rights, some government officials have adopted a pro-choice stance. New Supreme Court Justice Carmen Argibay stated she supports legalizing abortion, as has Argentina’s minister of health over the last year.

The struggles for abortion rights in Argentina reflect a rising self-confidence among women, as a result of their increasing integration into the workforce. The Assembly for the Right to Abortion in Argentina has called another march in Buenos Aires on May 28 to press for the right to choose and is organizing workshops on the issue.

These developments across Latin America are a further confirmation of the worldwide trend towards the growing social and political weight of women in struggles for the transformation of humanity.  
 
 
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