Abortion and social justice | Page12

With abortion, you do not eat and do not create jobs. It's clear. However, pretending to push the discussion down the list of urgent debates is a deception.

First because it is a historic claim. More than a decade ago, the National Campaign for the Right to a Free and Secure Legal Abortion was formed and this federal articulation was the driving force behind this green tide, which was spreading more and more young across the country. It is the eighth time that he presents his project to the Chamber of Deputies, with the support of a broad political arc.

Secondly, because it is a public health problem and, in addition, social justice: Abortion is a practice that affects all sectors of society, women and those with the capacity to procreate richer and poorer who abort, but those who have none. Resources, those who are in a situation of greater vulnerability, are those who pay their bodies and their lives the consequences of concealment.

Thirdly, until the abortion is decriminalized and legalized and it continues to impose illegal obstacles in public hospitals to girls like Lucia, who are pregnant and who are not pregnant. they must be raped or abused, they will cry to tears to take what the old man gave them. on your right.

Fourth, because we struggle not only so that no other woman or person with a gestational capacity will die by deciding to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy – in despair of facing a pregnancy, they do not want to continue – but also to have the right to decide our body. and our lives, for our freedom: without legal abortion, we are still second-clbad citizens. Imagine that we tie both legs to the boys and that we are forced to walk comfortably the rest of their lives, unable to walk or move. The comparison may seem ridiculous, but it seeks to show that it is important to be able to dispose of our body without arbitrary and intrusive imposition. We can not only aspire to decriminalize this practice – even if, in itself, it would be a big step forward ", because we would continue to press for more precarious interventions to be addressed to those who can not afford an abortion in security conditions: they would no longer have the threat and fear of being denounced, but without the state guaranteeing the practice – and for that we need legalization – thanks to its attention in the hospitals or to its coverage for social and prepaid works, we will continue to widen the inequalities of access.Legalization does not increase the costs of the State nor the number of Abortions.The then Minister of Health, Rodolfo Rubinstein, who was later demoted to the post of secretary, made it clear during congressional hearings, and I call his words to remember some sta data official statistics, which contextualize the discussion:

• "In countries where abortion is legal, between 1990 and 2014, the number of abortions per thousand women of childbearing age has decreased, which has not been the case in many countries. with more restrictive legal frameworks. "
• "In the current scenario, almost 70% are medical abortions.What happens is that access to aborted drugs is obtained on the secondary market at exorbitant prices; abortions instrumented by professionals in clandestine offices and finally about 10% are informal uterine evacuations.This is an abortion performed in conditions of extreme insecurity ".
• "If the law on abortion was sanctioned, abortion would be pharmacological in 90% of cases."
• "Misoprostol is now between 3,000 and 5,000 pesos, and the cost would be 30 times lower (if it was legal)."
• "The cost of abortion today is 11,500 pesos and 1914 pesos if the law of IVE was sanctioned.This difference is related to the very dramatic reduction in the rate of complications, in the where the abortion takes place in a legal environment. "
• "In the current scenario, everything is a pocket expense.In case of legalization, it is the costs attributable to complications that fall and the cost of drugs would be absorbed by the national state.
• "Any avoidable death in a woman should worry us, but in addition, death is the latest emergence of a health and social reality much wider.And we find that there are 70 000 hospitalizations in Argentina, which belong to the public sector provinces, which are part of social works, but they are. "
• "In short, it is a public health problem because it leads to preponderant mortality and preventable morbidity, especially among young women, women in good health and high social vulnerability".
• "Countries with restrictive legal frameworks do not reduce the number of abortions but increase the proportion of unsafe abortions.And the legalization of abortion reduces mortality and hospitalization due to complications without incurring additional costs for the health system. "

Here I come back: it is essential to recover the Ministry of Health, at first. And guarantee information and access to contraception and turn public education into a real public policy. But decriminalizing and legalizing abortion is a matter of public health, human rights and, no doubt, social justice. That's the law.