Yet another story about what life is like for women in "pro-life" countries:
Two months pregnant and bleeding, Yanira Then says she went to a clinic in her low-income Santo Domingo neighborhood, where her doctor said she had suffered a miscarriage.Then was still in her hospital gown that February morning when her doctor's office was stormed by police, prosecutors and television news cameras. Accused of having had an abortion, Then, a 27-year-old law student, was arrested along with two other patients, the nurses and her physician.
She faces 3 to 10 years in prison. The doctor faces 50.
Can you think of any clearer way to send the message, "Your body is public property"?
Yanira Then is accused of attempting to induce abortion using misoprostol. This is a common reaction among women in countries where abortion is illegal. They induce abortion at home -- using pills like misoprostol or sometimes more violent means -- and then seek a doctor's treatment for miscarriage. Doctors are often put in the position of letting these women die of infection or blood loss, or facing prosecution for assisting in abortion.
This story is also a reminder that criminalizing abortion doesn't make it stop. The abortion rate in the Dominican Republic is 44 per 1,000 women -- more than double the rate in the U.S., where abortion is legal (though not always available). The DR is currently considering revisions to its penal code to permit abortion in cases of rape or incest.
Santo Domingo District Attorney Jose Manuel Hernandez denied any connection between the arrests and the penal code proposals, but added that he did hope to instigate a debate on issues such as allowing condom distribution or the morning-after pill. [...]"This is a matter of public health, and we have to determine what our public health policy is," he said in an interview. "The discussion has begun. That's what we wanted."
In other words, they staged a police and media raid on a clinic where they further traumatized a woman who had just had a miscarriage, all to "instigate a debate" about contraception. Clearly, this man couldn't care less about the actual women, like Yanira Then, who are affected by his nation's public policy. She's just a rhetorical device.
Via Repro Rights Law Prof blog.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Police raid clinics in the Dominican Republic.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/5026
Weekly Feministing Newsletter
Feministing RSS Feed
Wow. That is truly outrageous.
I often wonder what would happen if Roe vs. Wade was overturned in the United States. How many people would use women's bodies as political statements trying to get back to the Supreme Court? I'm terrified to find out.
How many people would use women's bodies as political statements trying to get back to the Supreme Court? I'm terrified to find out.Poor women if it's by force, anyone if it's by consent (such as someone pushing his/her late lover's/wife's wishes post mortem).
Wow. I hope the television reporters got a shot of her with her feet still on the stirrups.
I'm disgusted beyond belief. Also, it must be great for the doctors to be faced with those kinds of decisions. Bet they didn't prepare for that in medical school.
People in the pro-life movement always say "that will never happen here".
But if you really, truly believe a fetus is a person, wouldn't you want the police to investigate accidental deaths that might be "accidental deaths" in the same way you'd want the police to investigate it if you were to be found "accidentally dead"?
That is why the not un-common occurance of miscarriage is indeed a reason to oppose criminalization of abortion: the consequences of criminalizing abortion are too costly, considering how many fetuses die anyway. And if you don't think deaths of fetuses should be considered important enough to investigate -- do you really believe fetuses are persons?
Why do the same people who always harp on "women should think of the consequences before they have sex" in opposing abortions refuse to think of the consequences of their actions pushing for legislation that would result in, e.g., women having traumatic miscarriages getting arrested for murder?
To quote Bill Clinton, "abortion should be safe, legal, and rare." I believe that if we want to reduce abortion in America we keep it safe and legal. To make it rare we need to have a well educated population, on how to prevent pregnancy. We need to make sure poor people can afford to care for their children. The biggest statistical correlation to high abortion rates is poverty, not legality.
Andrew - I completely agree. And you summed it up a lot more concisely than I usually do. Well done.
Thanks Vervain, Bill may have had personal issues but he was damn smart on policy most of the time. It sure is nice to see the American people waking up to the Bush debacle. It is just a shame it took them so long.