Chile: more than 100 women became pregnant with a lot …

While Chile debates abortion decriminalization project, a discussion sparked by its legalization in Argentina, 111 women in this country have been affected by unintended neglect none of the three reasons why abortion is allowed in the neighboring country.

Between March and September 2020, the Institute of Public Health (ISP), the highest pharmacological authority in the country, warned that eight lots of six different contraceptive pills, administered at public health centers, were faulty and ordered their withdrawal. of the market.

However, the institution again authorized the distribution of one of the brands, Anulette CD, just a week after its withdrawal, claiming the flaws were visibly detectable.

More than 100 women have reported unintended pregnancies from the drug, including some teenage girls, according to data from Movement for the legal termination of pregnancy (in thousands).

The ISP, meanwhile, “is still studying its position and responsibility in the case,” according to the authorities.

“One day, my medical center called me to tell me that there were lots in bad condition, but my pills did not fit in these boxes and I was calm,” he explained in dialogue with EFE, Estefany Cavieres, a 28-year-old girl who had been on family planning treatment in public hospitals for three months.

When Cavieres started to feel nauseous, tired and sore in her breasts, she had no doubt that she was pregnant. An error in the manufacture of the contraceptive had truncated his life plans: to be able to stabilize his work as a stylist and to devote himself to the care of his second daughter, aged three, who has health problems.

“The world is already too complicated to bring more children. And now I ask myself: who do I trust? It makes you angry because the system is giving up “, denounced the young woman who, after three months of unwanted pregnancy and depression, had a miscarriage.

Motherhood will be desired or it will not be

“Looking in the mirror is hard, I see my stomach and it reminds me of that nightmare. There are days when I wake up well and want to have it, but most don’t.”said Valentina Donoso, who, at 21, had to interrupt her plans to study at the university.

The young woman, who has the financial support of her parents and lives in a vulnerable town in the south of the Chilean capital, said that motherhood had to be desired: “I wanted to be a mother, but later. I wanted to have a job and a house before that. I wanted to have a future. “

Defective lots have been distributed across the country and affected people reside in different regions.

Barbara Vasquez, The 20-year-old, who lives in Ñuble, a region in central Chile, also saw her studies as an education technician for children at risk when she learned of the pregnancy. “I don’t have a job or anything stable to offer my baby, we need financial compensation. For my family, this expense is too high, ”said the student.

For its part, Soledad Castillo, a 35-year-old municipal worker who is also in her fifth month of unwanted pregnancy, shared her experience: “My midwife called me to tell me to stop taking Anulette and warned me to buy other contraceptives on my own. I don’t know anything else. “

For Laura Dragnic, Miles’ lawyer, in this case, there are two responsible: the laboratory that manufactured the drugs and the state, not to monitor their quality and not meet the needs of the people concerned. “This constitutes a lack of service. There was no real support, it is something that the State has tried to keep below,” denounced the lawyer.

The Miles Chile Corporation and the international organization Women’s Link Worldwide urgently called on the United Nations Rapporteur on the Right to Health and the Rapporteur on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to order Chile to take urgent measures to resolve the problems of provision of sexual and reproductive health services.

Inability to access abortion

Like other affected women, Donoso was denied the right to abortion because this pharmacological neglect does not fall strictly under any of the three grounds for which abortion is permitted in Chile: rape, unfeasibility of the fetus or risk of mother’s death.

According to Estefanny Molina, lawyer for Women’s Link Worldwide, a platform that brought the case before the United Nations (UN) and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), This situation represents “a complete chain of violations of the sexual rights of Chilean women”.

The specialist was of the opinion that safe and effective family planning methods were not provided, that these women were not allowed to have abortions, and ultimately that protection was not available to those without resources. “Chile has a challenge to overcome. There is a need to broaden the concept of sexual health and, therefore, to review the decriminalization of abortion”, he condemned.

Legal abortion is a historic claim of feminist groups in Latin America, where only Argentina, Cuba, Uruguay, Guyana, as well as Mexico City and the Mexican state of Oaxaca, have allowed free and voluntary interruption. of pregnancy.

Although in Chile, the total veto against abortion was lifted in 2017, more and more organizations are calling for it to be decriminalized beyond the three permitted grounds, which is currently under discussion in parliament.

“It cannot be,” concluded Molina, “that half of Chile’s population remains unprotected because the state does not care about ensuring sexual and reproductive rights.”