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"Aunty Jane Hotline is an Interactive Voice Response system, meaning women can access information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in English and Swahili. Aunty June gives information on PPH prevention, contraception, unwanted pregnancy and abortion, among other sexual and reproductive health topics. Because abortion is a very stigmatized topic, the launch of this public hotline is an important step forward. Callers can leave a message or sms and get a call back from a trained operator if they have specific questions or want to speak with someone".
As soon as I got those news, I envied the Kenyans. Abortions are the third cause of maternal mortality in Brazil. It's estimated that over 1 million abortions take place in Brazil every year. One in five Brazilian women will have aborted by the age of 40, at least once. Abortions are punishable by law, unless the pregnancy is considered risky to one's life or consequence of rape. In both cases, though, court orders are needed to require the surgery and justice is not accessible at all to the most vulnerable groups of our population. Recently the Supreme Court in Brazil ruled that anenchepalic fetuses can be aborted if the pregnant wishes so.
At the same time, fundamentalist and conservative politicians have submitted a new law to the Congress, called "Estatuto do Nascituro", which actually means something like "Unborn Rights Act". The law, if approved, puts unborn fetuses' rights above adult persons' rights. We would basically become wombs tutored by the State. Not eating "properly" while pregnant would be ground to imprison someone, for instance. The Act doesn't define, however, what "properly" means in any cases, and it doesn't define from what moment embryos of fetuses would have such rights (from conception? what about miscarriages then?).
Women's and feminist organizations are already fighting against this threat, but all help is needed. There is an online petition you can sign here (I haven't tried translating the statements of the petition via Google Translate but I guess general meaning can be properly conveyed if you wish to do it) and several protests and online actions are being arranged.
How dare some Brazilians think they live in a more developed country than Kenya?
Nice piece. We live in a society where culture and religion still plays integral role in influencing our decision and choices of life. Pre Marital sex and especially abortion is still frowned at in most societies and sometimes I find it hard to get the logic behind encouraging abortion in our society when emphasis should be placed on discouraging young people from pre marital sex or at least encourage them to use protection until they are ready to make babies. The proposed bill for the right of the unborn child is another topic entirely but may I ask why you feel a baby in the womb deserves do be killed just because the mother feels like.
ResponderExcluirHi, my dear friend Tahir! :) I'm glad you came to my blog and expressed yourslef in a very controversial point. I inted to write a more detailed article here about my point of view on abortion, so that some of the questions you brought become clearer!
ResponderExcluirI believe we can find a huge diversity of cultures, societies and political arrangements in the world nowadays. I know for sure the Nigerian society can be very different from the Brazilian or the Chinese, for example, in many aspects. In Brazil, generally everybody agrees that they want to have pre-marital sex, and that they feel their marriages can last longer if they have experienced sex before getting married. There are some orthodox religious people who disagree with that, but in our culture, in general, this is not even in question. We have many ways of preventing pregnancy, but information needs to get to people. Still, these ways may fail for various reasons and, when they fail, I sustain that nobody should have a pregnancy if this is going to generate trauma both for the pregnant and the to-be-born-child. Besides that, there is the fact that in Brazil consensual sex is not the only way to get pregnant and I will never think it's reasonable that a woman who was already raped need to suffer for 9 months plus her whole life for it, unless she decides to keep the pregnancy (and therefore maybe she won't suffer at all, who knows?). But the possibility must be there, because we are not all the same.
About the fetus being a baby or not, I strongly suggest you read Carl Sagan's article about where life begins in the womb, for it offers a very concrete perspective on the abortion debate. Very scientific and reasonable, too. Here's the link: http://www.2think.org/abortion.shtml
Wow, the article by Carl Sagan is quit long and I stopped where they were saying that there is no right to life in any given society and they gave examples with how we raise animals only to kill them for consumption. To be honest, they are making their case just like the lawyers would do. Concrete perspective I must admit and I will try and complete reading the article later but I have gotten their point just as I understand your point.
ResponderExcluirBut just like you said this argument differs depending on the society. In Nigeria to be honest with you, abortion is seriously frown at and what most activists do is to encourage young persons to avoid pre-marital sex or at most use protection. Our law permits abortion only when the life if the woman is threatened. We (Nigeria) are a society who try as much as possible to abide by religious and cultural obligation so instead of supporting abortion, we rather speak against pre marital sex or at most encourage protection.
The media is doing just that as over and over, their are campaigns for safe protection during sex. As a media practitioner, I have never watched, listened, or read in the media where abortion is supported. It is like a taboo. But as it is, the world is changing and so are ideas and concepts. I feel this is a debate that will go on and on.
I feel the government can come in here. If a lady does not want to keep the baby, she can drop the baby with the social welfare department to raise them. I just feel the fetus deserves to live.