Melissa M. says, “I don’t know about El Salvador.” Well, it’s tragic there. All I want to say is, fuck Daniel Ortega (who is not the only one responsible for a disastrous situation, I’ll admit). Chile is such a conservative society that a reform looks distant.

I have seen some statistics about Colombia and back-alley abortions. They are frightening. The law has been changed thanks to this woman’s “very public death” and the efforts of lawyer Mónica Roa, who seems to be very courageous and active and, as you could expect, is being threatened. Maybe you’ll feel like sending her a line at info@womenslinkworldwide (I haven’t found a more direct address for her in the site).

Chile, on the other hand, still outlaws abortion, and I have little hope despite Michelle Bachelet’s presidency that the law will change any time soon. Even thought Chileans were able to elect a Socialist woman president, the lingering effects of Pinochet era electoral laws mean that the Right is overrepresented in the National Congress and especially in the Senate which makes progressive laws difficult to pass. I don’t know about El Salvador, but it may very well take constitutional reforms (which the Senate has to approve, and I don’t know how that’s going to happen) to legalize abortion even to save the life of the mother in Chile.

You know what? My mum had interuterine cancer when she was pregnant with me. She refused to terminate the pregnancy, and went through absolute hell trying to carry me to term…. up to and including having bits of her uterus SLICED AWAY whilst I was still in there. She received an immediate hysterectomy after birth, and still had a series of complications. Uterine cancer is serious shit… but we know that.

I’ve had a hell of a time dealing with the fact that my mum nearly died trying to have me, and as a kid I had horrible guilt about the post-cancer nastiness she had to deal with. That poor child that is going to grow up with the highly publicised knowledge that their mother not only died because they were born, but because they were FORCED to be born? What the fuck kind of thing is that to burden a child with?

Poor little dude.

I always wonder these things. The papers go on about the ones directly effected by these situations ,but never touch on the ones who aren’t in the spotlight, who suffer right along with the the object of the article, but never get their 15 minutes of fame.

I say if anti-choicers really are sincere about their position they should stop being the moral equivalent of chickenhawks and pair up with women keeping problematic pregnancies and have to experience the same thing the woman with whom they’ve paired experiences — weight gain, no drinking, a big pain at the time of labor. And if the woman goes bankrupt due to the cost of raising the kid, they get to go bankrupt. And if the woman get injured from the pregnancy, they get injured. And if the woman dies, they get killed.

I’m sick and tired of people who, without any risks to their own life, health or even pocketbook say that women should never have abortion ’cause it kills widdle fetuses. You wanna get Biblical? Well then, as I said, be prepared for an “eye for an eye”, etc. Otherwise, remember to do unto others (only) what you would have them do to you. You don’t wanna be blocked from getting life saving medical care? Then don’t do it to others.

So will any so-called pro-lifers even step up to adopt all of those kids at once so that way the family at least is not broken up?