By Louise PalmerAugust 24, 1997 in print edition M-2
Flip through any one of Mexico City’s daily newspapers and you will likely come across the following announcement: “Unexpected Pregnancy? Don’t despair, we will help you.” If you call the number listed, you will find it is a not-so-veiled advertisement for an abortion clinic.
You may think this impossible: Abortion is illegal in Mexico, ergo, abortion doesn’t happen. Or maybe it happens, but not often, and certainly not easily. This is, after all, an overwhelmingly Catholic country where flower-covered shrines of the Virgin of Guadalupe appoint local market stalls, streetside gardens and even taxi stands. You would be wrong.
Mexicans may be Catholic but they are not necessarily conservative or morally rigid, at least not in ways we take for granted as obvious. There are, in fact, 850,000 abortions performed every year in Mexico. That is the “official” 1993 statistic from the National Perinatal Institute. No one really knows the numbers. Some cite a rate as high as 2 million a year. What is indisputable, however, is that women are dying from self-inflicted or badly managed back-alley abortions at the rate of about 1,500 a year.
Given such a high incidence of clandestine abortion, you might also expect that both the Catholic Church and pro-life groups would be kicking up a big fuss. You would be wrong again. Neither the church nor its pro-life activists have turned abortion into a heated public issue. In fact, the dedicated pro-life contingent is small and, according to the pro-choice contingent, relatively harmless. They distribute literature and videos, including “The Silent Scream,” a graphic depiction of abortion favored by U.S. pro-life groups, and occasionally attack pro-choice Mexicans in the press. But, for the most part, there are no mass demonstrations, no clinic bombings, no assassinations of doctors. That is not to say, however, that a social or political consensus exists.
“Even though this is a huge public health issue, no one talks about it, everything is under the table,” says Martha Lamas, director of the Information Group on Reproductive Choice, known by its Spanish acronym GIRE, Mexico’s leading advocate of legalized abortion. “[Abortion] happens all the time, and yet it is stigmatized because of the church. And the political culture here does not permit debate. It is a contradictory situation.”
In some ways, the church doesn’t need to launch a pro-life crusade. The cultural weight of religion, Lamas says, keeps Mexican women–and society at large–in what people commonly refer to as a double moral. This has direct consequences. The high rate of abortion, says a gynecologist who performs clandestine abortions and does not want to be identified, is linked to a general reluctance to disobey the church by using birth control. This, in turn, is linked to religious sanction on extramarital sex, or sex for recreational, rather than procreational, purposes. The fact that more than 88% of all women who have had abortions are Catholic does not escape notice.
A pro-choice group called Catholics for the Right to Decide, with support from the Washington-based group Catholics for Free Choice, are trying to change these attitudes through workshops and presentations. It teaches that church dogma is unclear on either the issue of abortion or birth control, that sexuality has a spiritual dimension apart from its procreative aspect and that the pope himself has said Catholics have the responsibility to obey their own conscience–and decide for themselves what is right.
The way this issue is played out socially and politically reflects, in many ways, something essential about the national character, which allows conformity and dissent to coexist in a person. Perhaps this dynamic explains why national polls show that more than 80% of Mexicans interviewed support the right of a woman to control her reproductive destiny–and yet there is no significant political or social support, even among women, to legalize abortion.
Living within this double moral, however, carries a high, and potentially lethal, price for women seeking an abortion. When a woman has an unwanted pregnancy, she has several options, most of which are medically unsound and none of which protects her from legal prosecution. Although implicit in this double moral is a tacit understanding that women will not be prosecuted, they are not protected from extortion–and threats of legal action–by corrupt police who by law must keep tabs on who comes and goes from hospitals.
The first option is to find a doctor willing to perform an abortion. However, this requires information and a good network as well as money (an abortion can cost as much as 5,000 pesos, or roughly $750).
The second option is the local pharmacy, where Cytopec, a drug that induces bleeding and sometimes spontaneous abortion, is widely available. The third is a trip to a midwife or the local market where ruda, a powerful herb, is cheap and plentiful. Finally, scissors, knives or the branch of a tree can be used to dilate the cervix and induce abortion. All these methods entail an enormous amount of cramping, pain and bleeding, without necessarily completing the abortion. Sometimes, they end in death.
“Abortion is a very difficult thing to do [in the context of a double moral],” explains the gynecologist. “The dilemma, of course, is the possibility of taking a life. Even when you understand the medical aspects of conception, in this environment, you have to be really clear with yourself about what you believe. For me, I won’t do abortions past eight weeks, because it is just too hard emotionally. But I do believe that women need to have the right to decide their own lives, so I will always help women find somewhere to go if I can’t help them.”
A doctor’s position is all the more precarious because of the law. In most states in Mexico, abortion is illegal except in the case of rape or where the life of the mother is endangered. The law, however, is complicated. According to Sen. Amalia Garcia, it does not make clear who decides when a violation has taken place or at what point the life of a woman is endangered. To further complicate the issue, the law varies from state to state. In the southern province of Yucatan, abortion is legal if a woman has at least three children and cannot support another, whereas in at least three states, there is no exception for the possible death of the mother.
Doctors performing abortion run the risk of six to eight years in jail and the loss of their licence, if caught. They also risk extortion by corrupt police. The gynecologist also says pro-lifers sometimes send “plants” to find out which doctors give abortions, though the doctors in her clinic have strategies to protect themselves and lawsuits are rare.
“We have to watch ourselves,” explains the doctor. “It’s very risky. Even among doctors, there is no debate over this issue. It is a subject everyone avoids. And without a debate, nothing will ever change.” Garcia, an outspoken feminist who has championed women’s rights for the past two decades, acknowledges legal access to abortion as an essential freedom for women and laments the unnecessary death of so many. When asked if she planned to fight for the legalization of abortion as she assumes her place in the Mexican Senate, Garcia dodged the question. After much prodding, she admitted she would fight for better access to health care and sex education, but she would not fight to decriminalize abortion. “As long as society is living this double moral, there will be no benefit to the person who stands up and fights for the right of women to control their own body. They will just alienate the left, right and center. To openly favor abortion in Mexico is simply not politically correct.”
Posted by Elia Soto
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