Conclusions

Although death due to causes related to abortion is the most dramatic consequence of this practice, it is obviously not the only one; the effects of interrupting a pregnancy in unsuitable conditions are devastating for a large number of Latin American women, their families, health systems and society as a whole. Women that are unable to pay for a safe abortion run enormous health risks. Many of them suffer consequences such as sterility or infections that may damage their vital organs. At the same time, those seeking health services for abortion complications may suffer mistreatment by medical personnel, who are often reluctant to perform abortions even in cases permitted by law. Aborting in these circumstances often entails an enormous emotional effort, particularly for the poorest or youngest women, since when faced with an unwanted pregnancy, they tend to have clandestine abortions, often in unsafe conditions. Conversely, women of higher socio-economic status in Latin America and other parts of the world can perform abortions safely and receive appropriate treatment from the personnel attending them, which largely reduces the likelihood of their abortion becoming a traumatic experience.

On the other hand, public health services, the budgets of which are insufficient in Latin American countries, feel the effects of the cost of dealing with women with incomplete abortions or complications from them. In these cases, women have longer hospital stays and their treatment involves higher costs. The problem could be substantially diminished if all women had access to safe abortions and access to post-abortion treatment. However, the legislation in most Latin American countries prevents this. These countries generally have restrictive abortion laws and regulations to perform it that, with very few exceptions, prohibit the interruption of pregnancy. Moreover, the laws on this issue are rarely complied with: the number of women tried for abortion constitutes a minute fraction of the millions of abortions performed in the region annually. Despite this, restrictions on abortion generate an atmosphere of persecution, since there is always the threat that those that resort to this practice will face legal problems. This leads to the stigmatization of abortion and discourages the training of medical personnel for dealing with it, as well as discouraging the introduction of safe, effective techniques for interrupting pregnancies.

In addition to being unenforced and increasing social injustice, restrictive abortion laws contravene the international commitments derived from conferences, such as those at Cairo and Beijing, agreed to by the states in the region. These commitments force signatory countries to guarantee, among other things, women’s reproductive health, for which it is essential to facilitate their access to health services where safe abortions are performed.

Cuba, Guyana and other countries in the region, particularly in the Caribbean, have achieved substantial progress in legislation on abortion. Although the achievements of these nations may serve as an example to many Latin American countries, women in them cannot always exercise the right to an unwanted pregnancy. It is essential to have an appropriated health infrastructure within which abortions may be performed.

As a region with a high rate of clandestine abortions, Latin America faces the challenge of changing its abortion laws to align them with people’s reproductive rights. Otherwise, millions of women in the region will continue to be obliged to terminate their pregnancies in unsuitable conditions, with the subsequent risk for their health and often their lives.

The consequences of abortion obviously constitute a health problem, and they also place a heavy burden on health systems in terms of costs and implications for health personnel. Abortion also has equally serious consequences for women and their families, both in the social sphere (rejection and stigmatization,) and as regards their economic welfare: the cost of abortions and their complications have enormous repercussions on family budgets.

Abortion is an indicator of social inequalities, since certain social groups suffer more disastrous consequences than others, namely younger women and those belonging to the most disadvantaged social classes. It also reveals gender inequalities, since no penal sanctions are placed on males, who are the “significant others” in the pregnancies of women that abort.

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