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niyad

(113,329 posts)
Sat Feb 21, 2015, 01:41 PM Feb 2015

Brazilian women resort to desperate measures after abortion crackdown

(but we are constantly told there is NO war on women!)

Brazilian women resort to desperate measures after abortion crackdown

In an increasingly conservative climate, Brazilian women are risking unsafe procedures and prosecution in order to terminate pregnancies



Demonstrators demanding new laws on abortion stage a mock funeral in São Paulo. Deaths related to clandestine abortions have sparked debate in Brazil. Photograph: Rahel Patrasso/Alamy




It has been a bad few months for Ana Teresa Derraik, clinical director of Rio de Janeiro state’s leading public hospital for obstetric health. In September, three women were admitted to intensive care after having corrosive chemicals injected into their uteruses. One died, one survived. The third, a 25-year-old mother of one, lost both her feet following surgery that just managed to keep her alive.

. . . . . .
Abortion is illegal in Brazil, except in very limited circumstances, but demand is high. Surveys suggest between 600,000 and 1 million women undergo the procedure each year.
But experts say a major crackdown in recent years on underground clinics across Brazil, accompanied by an increasingly conservative National Congress, has made a highly risky situation even more dangerous. Women appear to be resorting to ever more desperate measures.

“There is nowhere to get a safe abortion now in Rio, no matter how much money you can pay,” says Beatriz Galli, policy adviser to international reproductive rights organisation Ipas.


Abortion in Brazil is only legally permissible – though still not necessarily easy to obtain – when a mother’s life is at risk, the pregnancy is a result of rape or the foetus has anencephaly, a condition that results in a baby being born with part of the brain and skull missing, leaving it unable to survive.
. . . . . .



http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/dec/11/brazil-abortion-law-women-desperate-measures

19 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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90-percent

(6,829 posts)
3. Snarky retort
Sat Feb 21, 2015, 03:29 PM
Feb 2015

Why don't these Brazilian women simply fly to Texas and partake of the planned parenthood clinics though out the state?

-90% jimmy

:sarcasm"

 

geek tragedy

(68,868 posts)
4. Isn't that where Glenn Greenwald lives?
Sat Feb 21, 2015, 03:33 PM
Feb 2015

Yet another example of countries that purport to be bastions of freedom excluding women from that calculation.

They make Mississippi look like a women's paradise.

jwirr

(39,215 posts)
5. Welcome back to the 50s USA. Too bad we cannot put instructions for a safe abortion on the
Sat Feb 21, 2015, 03:51 PM
Feb 2015

internet. That would not help anyhow. Most of those women probably do not own a computer.

 

SheilaT

(23,156 posts)
6. Some years ago I read that in Brazil, because abortion was illegal
Sat Feb 21, 2015, 04:09 PM
Feb 2015

about half of all maternity beds were occupied by women recovering from illegal abortions.

What's truly pathetic is that those who seek to outlaw abortions apparently do believe that if abortions are outlawed, women just won't get them. Or that pregnant women whimsically decide to have an abortion, just because.

Curmudgeoness

(18,219 posts)
7. No. Those who seek to outlaw abortion
Sat Feb 21, 2015, 04:23 PM
Feb 2015

don't care one iota about the women who will have them. They seek to punish them anyways. What better way than to have them die from illegal abortions.

niyad

(113,329 posts)
9. they believe in punishing women for daring to have sex, for daring to think their lives matter.
Sat Feb 21, 2015, 04:30 PM
Feb 2015

Mariana

(14,858 posts)
13. Some people really do believe
Sat Feb 21, 2015, 04:38 PM
Feb 2015

that women get abortions just because they feel like having one that day, you know, on the way to having their nails done or after shoe shopping or whatever. There was a troll on DU a couple of years back babbling about how many women have "casual abortions" vs. those who have them because of rape or life threatening medical problems. Seriously, he said women have "casual abortions".

eggplant

(3,911 posts)
14. Two things.
Sat Feb 21, 2015, 04:45 PM
Feb 2015

I've actually met women who consider abortion to be their birth control. Only a very few, but they do exist.

It is 100% their right to do so, and to be able to do so without shame. Choice means choice, whether others agree with their decision or not.

lark

(23,105 posts)
11. My heart weeps for these women
Sat Feb 21, 2015, 04:33 PM
Feb 2015

and any others anywhere where male politicians have gained control of medical services and enforce their misogny on unwilling young women. Their but for the grace of goddess go I. Even before Roe v Wade abortion was legal in NY, even if it wasn't anywhere else on the East Coast. Several times friends of mine got pregnant unintentionally while in high school or college - we all pitched in with what little $$ we had and made sure they got to NYC if that's what they wanted. It was like an underground railroad of emancipation for women. I can't imagine being in a place where there are no safe options whatsoever. How horrifying.

niyad

(113,329 posts)
12. as does mine. your comment about the underground railroad is something that, it appears, we will
Sat Feb 21, 2015, 04:37 PM
Feb 2015

have to resurrect as the woman-hating, pro-forced birthers in our halls of legislation roll back the rights for which we have fought so hard.

lark

(23,105 posts)
17. I wouldn't be at all surprised if our granddaughters don't end up facing the same things we did
Sun Feb 22, 2015, 05:10 PM
Feb 2015

45 years ago. I'd certainly do everything I could to help.

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