More than 20,000 Chileans marched on Tuesday night, April 22, through the streets of Santiago to demonstrate their rejection of the Constitutional Court's ruling which last week banned the distribution of the morning-after pill through the public health care system.
Earlier in the day, La Nacion reported: "The chairman of the Confederation of Workers of Health Municipalizada (Confusam), Esteban Maturana, said that the guild had accepted the call to paralyse its activities.” Subsequently, 80% of medical clinics went on a one day strike.
The Constitutional Court, on April 4, declared, by five votes in favour and four against, that the free distribution of the contraceptive, morning-after pill in public health services was illegal. This in a country where abortion is completely illegal.
The Chilean president, Michelle Bachelet, commented shortly after the decision: "I deeply regret the judgement, in a country that aspires to be in the major leagues, where people have equal opportunities in health, education, and development...this is an injury to the construction of a more equitable society."
The objection was submitted in early 2007 by 31 legislators from the right against the decree of the Ministry of Health, which provided for the free distribution of the emergency pill to teenagers older than 14 years without the consent their parents.
The church was implicit in waging the ideological battle. The question of morals, and "the right to life" were common arguments, with all forms of contraception being seen as an abortion.
Recently, Pope Benedict XVI, on the lush lawns of the White House, alongside president George W. Bush, reaffirmed the church’s position against abortion: “the right to life of every human being from conception to natural death”, reported on April 16 the Associated Press.
However, the safety, and right for a woman to have a choice, did not enter the right, nor the church’s vocabulary.
Indeed, while this decision does not prevent the contraceptive pill to be sold commercially in pharmacies – another indication that the neoliberal restructuring, and privatisation of the health care system continues - it will be the poor that suffer the most. Meanwhile, the wealthy woman will have the luxury of being able to pay for the pill and the privatised chilean health care system.
During the week the local media reported that a twenty-one year old woman was hospitalised after her boyfriend attempted to administer a backyard abortion. Unfortunately, this is not uncommon.
María Cáceres, from clase contra clase (class against class), reported in a April 10 article: “Today in the country there is between 160,000 and 200,000 abortions a year, even though abortion is illegal; tomorrow, with the recent [court] judgement, there will be double the abortions and we will see double the deaths due to clandestine abortions.”
Cáceres elaborated that, “when speaking about reproductive rights, it’s about rights that have been conquered by women years ago, through struggle, with the rise of the masses, through social and cultural change.”
However, where the right for choice has been eroded it means that “others simply decide for our [women's] bodies and lives”, commented Cáceres. She concluded that “it’s not about only defending the pills and other methods of contraception…but we should fight for [the proper] conditions and right to reproduction that are of quality, and are free.”
