After Jailing Women, Bolivia Weighs Legalizing Abortion - Gillian Kane - The Atlantic
▻http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/06/after-jailing-women-bolivia-weighs-legalizing-abortion/277147
On January 30, 2012, Helena, a 27-year-old Guaraní Indian, was arrested and handcuffed to her bed at the Percy Boland Maternity Hospital in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Six months earlier, she had been raped; at the time of her arrest she was 24 weeks pregnant. Helena (not her real name) was reported to police authorities by her doctor after seeking emergency treatment for obstetric complications from taking pills to end her pregnancy. She was charged with the crime of abortion. Abortion is illegal in Bolivia and lawbreakers like Helena can face up to three years in prison.
Punitive responses to crisis health needs like this play out all over Latin America, where abortion is largely illegal or highly restricted in many countries. That may soon change in Bolivia, however. The nation’s top court is scheduled to meet Monday to review a constitutional challenge to the country’s abortion laws and to other policies that impede women’s access to a full range of human rights. A positive decision would mean that for the first time in 41 years, Bolivian women meeting certain conditions for an abortion would be free from criminal sanctions.
#IVG #avortement #Bolivie #femmes