HEALTH-ARGENTINA: Women to Enjoy Free Access to Birth Control

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jun 23 2000 (IPS) - The city legislature of the capital of Argentina approved a controversial law aimed at preventing unwanted pregnancies and deaths from botched abortions, in a country where an estimated 1,300 are practiced daily despite the fact that terminating a pregnancy is illegal.

Overcoming strong resistance by a group of church activists, parents and students at Catholic high schools and universities, the Buenos Aires legislature approved the new law by 39-13 in the early hours of Friday morning.

Women and girls of any age will now have free access to information on reproductive health and to contraceptives in the public health system in the capital.

After their victory Friday, the sponsors of the new law are now gearing up for an attempt to push it through the national Congress.

The clauses that drew the loudest protests were the ones providing for the possibility of teenagers to obtain birth control without parental permission, and for the incorporation of the IUD (intrauterine device) — which is rejected by the Catholic Church — onto the list of authorised contraceptive methods.

Earlier this month, a delegation of Argentine women flew to New York to take part in “Beijing Plus Five” — the special United Nations assembly following up on the progress made towards compliance with the platform of action adopted at the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing.

Argentina has traditionally voted alongside the Vatican and the bloc of countries most staunchly opposed to family planning. But the alliance government of Fernando de la Rúa, which took office in December, has taken a less militant stance against women’s reproductive health rights.

Through the new law, women, and especially low-income teenagers, will now enjoy access to information, exams related to reproductive health, and birth control in public hospitals in Buenos Aires.

Demanded by women’s and health advocacy groups for years, the new law was applauded by local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as well as gynocologists and obstetricians who have long defended the need to prevent abortions and teen pregnancy.

According to a report by the Latin American Centre on Health and Women, 48 percent of women in Latin America use no contraceptive method, and 37 percent of pregnancies in the region are unwanted.

In Argentina, meanwhile, health ministry statistics indicate that 16 percent of babies are born to girls and teenagers between the ages of 10 and 19, while the World Bank found that 40 percent of sexually active adolescents use no form of birth control.

Around 500,000 abortions are practiced annually in this Southern Cone country, despite the fact that they are illegal. And while the risk is much lower for those who can afford the cost of an expensive abortion in aseptic conditions, those who have no option but a “back-alley” abortion often risk their lives in the process.

Lawmaker Juliana Marino, one of the sponsors of the new law, commented that in Argentina “it is the poor who have the most children, and who most frequently seek out abortions, in the worst conditions.”

But Marino underlined that the new law did nothing to promote abortion, or even to make available “abortive” birth control methods, as claimed by the Catholic protesters massed outside the legislature, who tried to shove their way into the building Thursday night.

Obstetrician Roberto Nicholson, with the Argentine Society of Fertility and Sterility, pointed out that since 1965 IUDs are not abortive, because they do not act against the fertilised egg, but instead impede the movement of sperm.

His colleague Juan Sebastiani, at the Italian Hospital, termed Friday “a very different kind of day,” because as of now doctors in the capital can provide information and birth control to couples interested in planning the number of children they want.

“We should aspire to becoming a country where every child is wanted by its parents,” said Sebastiani, who lamented the number of girls and adolescents who show up at emergency rooms in public hospitals seriously ill after undergoing abortions in septic conditions, or about to give birth without ever having come for a prenatal check-up.

Dr. Mabel Bianco, the director of the Foundation of Research on Women and the head of the National AIDS Programme, said those opposed to the new law should understand that “not all families are safe environments,” which is where the state must make its presence felt.

Bianco was referring to youngsters who suffer domestic violence or sexual abuse, are sexually exploited, or who simply find it impossible to talk to their parents or other adults on how to take care of their bodies and their health.

“This is not a law on birth control or demographic policy,” clarified one of the bill’s sponsors, legislator Clori Yelicic. “This is a law aimed at reversing inequalities, injustices and the suffering of many, mainly poor, women.”