'Absolutely No Medical Records': How Women Get Back Alley Abortions in Argentina

'Absolutely No Medical Records': How Women Get Back Alley Abortions in Argentina

We spoke to the women who are forced to get unsafe, illegal abortions and to the doctors who provide them.

by Carla McKirdy
Dec 4, 2015

As soon as twenty-year old Camila Gónzalez found out she was pregnant just two years ago, she broke down in tears. "I knew I couldn't tell my mom—not because she wouldn't support me in getting an abortion, but because she would shame me for getting pregnant in the first place." Camila is just another victim of a society that continues to police women's bodies.

As it stands today, Argentina's civil code does provide for legal abortion, but only in cases of rape, incest, or endangerment of the mother's health—and the interpretation of that last word is the key issue in Argentina. The Ministry of Health recently published a report stating that mental health risks constitute fair grounds to access safe abortion procedures at any public facility, but the system in the country still allows medical practitioners abstain from performing medical procedures by merely citing "moral grounds".

Stella Manzano thinks that this needs to change. She is a doctor with a professional track record spanning three decades; she is also a member of the national campaign for the legalization of abortion and a proud abortion provider at a public hospital in the province of Chubut. "Doctors have no right to conscientious objection," she told Broadly. "These objectors are typically the ones who attack us for providing abortions, but then they turn around and also perform abortions themselves when the money is right. I think it's simple: If you can't or won't perform abortions, then don't become a gynecologist."

In Camila's case, the mother of her boyfriend fortunately knew of a place that could make it all go away—for a price. Access to illegal abortions performed by medical professionals is a luxury that only middle and upper class women in Argentina can afford, typically through word-of-mouth. Women from low-income neighborhoods have the misfortune of falling prey to local lore—which includes recommendations to chug bleach and parsley-based concoctions—or even worse, unsanitary back-alley abortions.

More:
https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/absolutely-no-medical-records-how-women-get-back-alley-abortions-in-argentina