In the DR, Article 30 Threatens Reproductive Health- But Women are Fighting Back

My day job is with an amazing organization called the International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC), which works to promote and protect the sexual and reproductive rights and health of all women and young people, particularly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. I work in communications there, doing research, writing for the blog , and, of course, performing admin duties 🙂 I’ve been working there for a few months now, and one of the most interesting parts of my job, in my estimation, is identifying and outlining the parallels between the challenges women face in the United States and the challenges we face internationally. I’m constantly reminded of the interconnectedness of our struggles, but I don’t know that this interconnectedness is always on the radar of all U.S. based feminists. To that end, I draw your attention to recent happenings in the Dominican Republic surrounding reproductive rights and health.
The same drive to exert control over women’s bodies that manifests in the U.S. in anti-choice efforts such as “fetal rights” laws is showing up in the Dominican Republic as, well, this. Proposed changes to a piece of legislation in the Dominican Congress called Article 30 would define life as “beginning at conception” and thus could effectively make any type of abortion unconstitutional and outlaw several forms of birth control. More after the jump.

This is certainly a dangerous threat to women’s reproductive health and rights. But women in the D.R. are not accepting the proposal without a fight. They have orchestrated a series of protests and women-led activist efforts surrounding the Article 30 reform. My awesome colleague Audacia Ray, who has gust-blogged for Feministing in the past, as well as several other IWHC staff and partners, have been following this story on our organization’s blog, Akimbo, for a few months now. We wrote our first in a series of posts covering changes to Article 30 and the activism back in April.
This case is noteworthy as much for the extreme nature of the threat to women’s health as for the tremendous mobilization efforts the law has inspired in the Dominican Republic. The case is also noteworthy because of the potential for an ultimately woman-positive result: just as the approval of Article 30 would represent a significant step backwards for women’s basic human rights and control over their own bodies, the rejection of Article 30 would send an international message attesting to the power of women’s activism and the backing of a strong international community in favor of women’s rights. Plus, the President of the Dominican Republic, Leonel Antonio Fernández Reyna, has expressed interest in a career in international politics after his term, which means that he may be more open to the influence of the international community.
With that in mind, it’s important that we support our Dominican sisters in this fight. Like I said, if there’s anything I’ve learned in my short time at IWHC so far, it’s that our struggles are all connected. If you are a Dominican citizen (including folks from the Dominican Republic who live in the United States), you should contact your representative and urge them to strike Article 30. Find your Senator here and your Diputado here. For non-citizens, you can send a letter to the President of the DR letting him know that the world is watching as he considers signing this bill. View a form letter, and get contact information, here. Also, encourage your Dominican friends to make their opinions known to their representatives, and work to stay informed and spread awareness about this issue. I’ll certainly do my best to keep you posted as IWHC receives update from our partners on the ground.
And check out our Flickr photostream to view some more pictures of the amazing activist efforts to protest Article 30, taken by our partner Colectiva Mujer y Salud, one of the Dominican feminist groups working on this issue (site in Spanish).