As a network of activists help women abortions in Argentina While Crown Lockdown Get

These days, Ruth Zurbriggen up meeting will be held at midnight. A high school teacher in the Argentine province of Neuquen, spend their free time Zurbriggen get abortions helped other women in a country where the procedure is legal in some circumstances. stuck at home because of a quarantine at the national level to prevent the spread of COVID-19, women often need to speak during the night to avoid getting their families or partners are sleeping and can not hear about their decision. Zurbriggen, 54, a founding member socorristas en Red (literally Network of Life Guards), a group of 504 activists spread over Argentine territory. The socorristas help women navigate the health care system of the country, which must be understood under the law to provide abortion in cases of rape or when the pregnancy is a threat to the mother’s health. Ministry of health protocol uses the WHO definition of health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease.” But to give a lot of doctors in most Catholic country waste in practice abortions without proof of physical risk. It ‘s impossible to obtain reliable data on legal or illegal abortions, but the Foundation for the Study and Research on Women (FEIM), estimated that legal abortions represent only about 20-25% of the 350,000 to 450,000 accounts, which are held in Argentina each year. Since 2012, the socorristas have worked to grow the percentage of abortions that take place in the legal system, a list of doctors friendly construction and connects women with them, as well as providing emotional support during the abortion process. 2019 accompanied the 12,575 women-up from 1,116 five years ago. The pandemic has done their job much more difficult. Some of the doctors have left socorristas effort was created in COVID 19 and are no longer available to perform abortions. A strict blockade by March 20, with the Argentines only able to leave their homes to buy food or medicine is considered, the overall coordination and consultation should be carried out virtually without meeting in person. The restriction of movement disturbs abortion probably illegal, it is difficult to justify or trips to conceal illegal activities. Advocates fear that women get desperate and unsure of what is available, will be based in more unsafe abortions made methods at home during the pandemic. These obstacles are women in Latin America and the Caribbean, a region where 30 of the 34 countries or ban abortion outright, or leave trusts only a limited ground of being. In Argentina, however, it is a very frustrating time for campaginers. A bill to legalize abortion in the media before ever with the President was presented in March due to the convention center, started just as the nationwide block. And ‘now it is delayed until the end of this year. For the moment, the Argentines had to navigate a precarious and uncertain system – in isolation. “We see very high degree of anxiety among women we support. They have a psychological sense that there is no way out, no way out,” said Zurbriggen, the end of its 16 pregnant women has helped since the blockade has had Start. “They think that if they do not even have the right to go now for the year as they want to go to get an abortion? We have to work hard to convince them that this is their right.” COVID-19 is a perfect storm for both the demand and the ‘abortion and the fund established in countries where abortion is not completely legal, says the doctor Mabel Bianco, director of the FEIM, the research institute, the reproductive rights in Argentina broaden decades spent working. “First, there will be more unwanted pregnancies,” he said the 79-year-old says via Skype from his home in Buenos Aires. “The whole family in a forced half a block that many young girls are exposed to more sexual abuse. And women have access to less ready contraceptives.” The United Nations warned on April 28, to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus that lockdowns, could lead to further 7,000,000 lower unwanted pregnancies and middle-income countries, where for six months. When the women go to seek abortions, they threw typically a health system into chaos by the pandemic to navigate. In the first weeks of Argentina, says White freezing orders, security officers turned women away from hospitals because of a directive allow access only for emergency or COVID-19 cases. “For some people, abortion is not considered an emergency situation,” he says. Since early March, doctors in some parts of the country, including the northern city of Cordoba, the drugs were deficiencies relate to misoprostol, used in many early time imeant abortions provided by the provincial authorities. On 13 April, the Argentine Ministry of Health issued a directive requiring that abortions on two legal Legal known as termination of pregnancy or ILE must be clarified an essential service. The national government said that working with the leaders of Argentina 23 provinces would certainly make access is guaranteed. But always guarantees a certain abortion provinces access to the best of difficult times, let alone during a block, says White. “We wrote a report on abortion by the Ministry of Health, which provides abortion for reasons of rape and mental health, social and physical. But eight provinces, mainly in the north, still refuse to use it,” he says. While there are the “conscientious objectors” in other areas, says White, it is particularly difficult for abortion access to these northern provinces. FEIM advises women who have legal abortions are denied to take legal action and to present cases against hospitals with Argentina’s National Institute against Discrimination. If women do not have access to a legal abortion, rarely with an unwanted pregnancy more supporters say. Instead, they are looking for clandestine abortion providers. These services are sometimes safe. Those who can afford to pay for a secret abortion by a doctor in a clinic or receive medications. poorer women, but access for inexperienced vendors in unhealthy working conditions or dangerous traditional methods, such as parsley or a probe is inserted into the vagina. In 2016, the latest year for which official figures are available, was 47,100 as a result of complications after an abortion (this number includes legal abortions) and 43 women died in relation to the hospital. Under lockdown, he says White is sure to get the toughest illegal abortions. With many non-emergency operations suspended during the pandemic, it will probably be difficult for doctors to admit women to perform these secure secret abortions. Instead, he says, most women feel the matter into their own hands forced to take. On April 28, the national campaign for Argentina said that the right to abortion, a woman of 22 years, in the province of Formosa had died after an unsafe abortion try at home. “The pandemic is a threat to life,” says White. “Not only because of the virus, but the consequences are imprisoned for women and girls.” The socorristas overtime, safe Zurbriggen says women do not need to use hazardous improvised methods, and to terminate pregnancies Lockdown. “With less sympathetic doctors available, we have to do a lot more attention to safely make women work has been associated with one.” Women in distress call one of the 54 collective socorristas scattered across the country. The socorristas then a video chat with a “buddy” set as Zurbriggen, who advises the woman where she can see a doctor, who would otherwise prescribe misoprostol abortion or help. Activists discuss how to take the medication, as well as offering emotional support. “It ‘s very difficult not to be able to meet these women in person.” The socorristas are also using social media to share information about the methods of abortion risks homemade. One of the best things “is that there are people who talk a lot more about their reproductive rights is to say” about the so-called Green Wave, was named as Argentina’s abortion campaign for its symbolic green handkerchief says Zurbriggen. That education is critical to have more women in order to ensure safe abortions. The pattern is seen in other Latin American countries, says Mariangela Urbina, 26, co-hosted by Las Igualadas, a YouTube channel that covers gender issues in Colombia. Such as Argentina, the country allows abortion for reasons of rape and risks to physical and mental health, as well as in cases of lethal fetal anomalies. “But it is a very taboo subject,” he says. “Many schools still teach about sexuality or contraception. This means you get a lot of misinformation.” On April 14 Lockdown three weeks in Colombia COVID-19, Las Igualadas published struggling for a video simply titled “How I have a abortion at home? “(” a Question many women who are wondering now, “says Urbina) provides information on how to reconcile a video consultation with a doctor to get a prescription for misoprostol. The video has sparked quick reaction from the media and conservative anti-abortion groups, including people call Urbina a murderess and wants to contract the virus in them. “It ‘s strange that causes some controversy, because the law has not changed under the crown. I think this shows that people do not understand what abortion. They think it’s a great, a bit’ scary, but it is actually [ often] just a case of taking drugs. “in Argentina Zurbriggen hopes that lawmakers soon eliminate the obstacles intensify bloc. When Congress comes back in session, expects legalization to adopt the law. In 2018, a similar bill passed in the House, but was rejected in the Senate by a whisker. This time is likely to be just as close: feminist project data Feminist Economics has 32 votes in favor, 36 against and four undecided. “I personally believe that [President Alberto] Fernandez would not have made a public commitment to them, unless it has some insurance in the Senate that would have happened,” said Zurbriggen. Meanwhile, he says, he will continue to socorristas their work. “Quarantine or any quarantine, we got them.”
Photo copyright Ronaldo SCHEMIDT -AFP / Getty Images