Chile: A Woman's Choice

In August 2017, the Chilean Constitutional Court upheld a long-awaited law decriminalising the practice of terminating a pregnancy if it is as a result of rape; if the foetus will not survive; and if the pregnancy would present a risk to the life of the mother. This came after decades of a draconian ban on abortion in the country, rooted in the socially repressive Pinochet dictatorship. Although the easing of the ban is ostensibly modest in its broadening of women’s rights over their bodies, the huge victory it represents for Chilean women in the face of fierce resistance from the right of the political spectrum and religious groups offers great hope for women across the continent.

The 1989 military government criminalised abortion under all circumstances in Chile, aligning its stance on female autonomy with that of the heavily influential Catholic Church. However, as Chile continued to grow economically and position itself as an internationally-respected developed nation, the regressive and restrictive nature of this law became increasingly apparent - Chile was the only member of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development that persisted in its imposition of such a ban. Indeed, restrictions on abortions hurt those most vulnerable in society and hindered the socio-economic mobilisation of the lower-classes, undermining Chile’s newly-acquired position on the world stage.

Human rights organisations decried this law, and after countless protests demanding change and the rejection of regressive attitudes towards women in Chilean society, primarily led by feminist movements, it was under President Michelle Bachelet that change was won. However, the intertwining of healthcare and religion continues to act as a burden for Chilean women. Since April of this year, the government has allowed private clinics to refuse to perform services on moral or religious grounds. This legal shift serves to further burden the poorest members of society who live in rural areas where religion continues to dominate the public and social sphere, and who may be unable to locate alternative clinics if they are refused help. The absence of truly effective sex education – which also has resulted in an increase in cases of AIDs and in a relatively high rate of teenage pregnancies across the country, particularly in the Maule region in which I am living  – further weakens the social position of such women, and highlights the need for a total social shift with regards to sexuality.

Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and several other Latin American countries still have complete bans on abortion, which devastatingly results in high maternal mortality rates as a consequence of unsafe ‘backstreet’ illegal abortions, poverty, gendered violence and weak health systems. In 2017, a ten-year-old Salvadorian child with mental difficulties gave birth after being raped, and such a horrifying, heart-breaking case highlights the desperate need to stop the criminalisation of women who want or need to terminate their pregnancies. Although the Argentinean senate rejected a bill proposing the legalising of abortion just two months ago, the progress achieved in Chile inspires hope that the stigma around this process may dissipate in the future, and the safety and choices of women are respected and prioritised instead.

Women are still fighting for greater freedoms with respect to their bodies, and the recent wave of ‘tomas’ or strikes in educational institutions across the country - originally rooted in sexual harassment allegations – permitted calls for the total legalisation of abortion to blossom. Although the deliberate termination of a pregnancy remains a taboo subject in Chile and there is still much to be achieved, the fact an international debate surrounding the decriminalisation of abortion has been sparked - due to the efforts of governmental and nongovernmental organisations - marks a watershed moment for the human rights movement.