CUBA: Contradiction Between Number of Abortions and Ideal Family Size

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Oct 29 2003 (IPS) - By the time they reach the end of their child-bearing years, a large proportion of Cuban women have had at least one abortion. However, many women also feel frustrated that they have not had the number of children they would have liked.

The average number of children per woman of child-bearing age in Cuba is between two and three. But by 1987, a national survey found that a significant number of women had only one child.

”When I was 20, I was just dying to have kids, but I was studying at the university. When I graduated, I had to establish myself in my career. After that, I didn’t have a partner, and now I don’t want to change my lifestyle,” said Sara Fernández, a 44-year-old philologist.

Fernández admitted that ”between one thing and another,” she had one abortion and two ”menstrual regulations”, or ”early uterine evacuations” – the treatment of the delayed menstrual period up to 14 days, to assure a non-pregnant state and a normal menstrual cycle the next time.

A woman undergoing a menstrual regulation may or may not be pregnant.

By contrast with most other Latin American nations, women in Cuba have the right to request an abortion, which is free of charge, simply as a personal decision involving their body.

The only limitations are that they must not be more than 12 weeks pregnant, and girls under 16 must be accompanied by an adult.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) reports that some 6,000 of the estimated four million women a year who undergo unsafe ”back alley” abortions in Latin America die of complications.

In 10 countries in the region, abortion is legal only in the case of a threat to the woman’s life, while in Chile, Colombia, Honduras and El Salvador abortion is prohibited under all circumstances, regardless of the risk to the mother.

After abortion was legalised in 1965 in Cuba, maternal mortality dropped from 120 to seven per 100,000 live births in 2000, according to Public Health Ministry statistics.

The Statistical Profile of the Cuban Woman, published in 2000 by the National Statistics Office (ONE), reports that there were a total of 5.6 million live births between 1968 and 1996, and 3.2 million abortions.

Last year, 21.5 abortions were documented for every 1,000 women between the ages of 12 and 49, and 49.8 for every 100 births. To that must be added a large number of menstrual regulations.

The gap between desired family size and the number of abortions practiced was pointed out by a survey on reproductive health carried out in two provinces by ONE’s Centre of Studies on Population and Development.

The study will be extended to the rest of the country with support from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

María del Carmen Franco, one of the study’s authors, said the aim was to investigate why women have abortions when they still want to have more children, and at what point in their child-bearing years this tends to occur.

Nearly half of the women between the ages of 15 and 59 interviewed in the central province of Cienfuegos and the eastern province of Holguín had experienced at least one interrupted pregnancy, which involved abortions rather than miscarriages in over 70 percent of the cases.

Hypothetically speaking, if all of the pregnancies among the women interviewed had been carried to term and ended in live births, the average number of children in Cienfuegos would have increased by 0.75 more children per woman, and 0.66 for every woman in Holguín.

But 40 percent of women over 45 in Cienfuegos who said they had had an abortion, and 33 percent in Holguín, said they did not have as many children as they would have liked.

In the case of men aged 15 to 59, the gap between ideal family size and reality in the two provinces was even greater: 64 percent of men said they would like to have more children.

While one out of two men said their ideal was a two-child family, the rest said they would like larger families.

Cuba’s population is ageing fast, as a result of diminishing birth and mortality rates and growing life expectancy.

That will cause enormous problems for social security in the next few decades, according to experts, who say the birth rate could rise slightly if socioeconomic conditions improve, public services are expanded, and a population policy is implemented that encourages young couples to have more than one child.

Incentives could range from monetary considerations to facilities for obtaining one’s own home, a difficult goal in Cuba due to the shortage of housing. Up to three or even four generations live together in many households.

But Dixie Trinquete, a 32-year-old professional and mother of three who lives in Havana, said the problem is not simply finding a place to live and achieving a certain living standard, but getting men to take part in child-rearing.

”Sometimes I tell people, and they don’t believe me. My husband and I share all domestic and child-rearing tasks and responsibilities. If he weren’t like that, if the entire burden had fallen on me, perhaps today I would have only one child, my oldest daughter,” she said.