United together with women and girls in El Salvador

International activists gathered on 25 September in a show of solidarity as Amnesty launched its new report on the terrifying impact of El Salvador’s total abortion ban.

“There’s a saying in El Salvador,” said Vicki Knox, Co-Director of the Central American Women’s Network (CAWN). “The rich abort, the poor bleed.”

And with that, everyone in the room understood the deep disadvantages that women and girls from poor backgrounds in El Salvador must face when it comes to making decisions about having sex or having children.

Abortion is banned in all cases in El Salvador. It doesn’t matter if you’re pregnant as a result of being raped, if your life is at risk, or if the foetus is not going to survive: abortion is always a crime in El Salvador.

This injustice – this scandal – is what brought us to Amnesty’s international headquarters in London last night. Whether Amnesty staff, like me, or activists from CAWN or My Belly is Mine, we were there to show our solidarity with the thousands of women and girls in El Salvador who are denied the right to control their own lives and fates by a law that has no place in the modern world.

As Vicki and Amnesty’s Guadalupe Marengo spoke about the harrowing cases of “Las 17” – 17 women who have been jailed for having abortions or miscarriages and other pregnancy-related “offences” – the insidious impact of the ban grew ever clearer.

Many of their cases are included in Amnesty’s reportOn the brink of death: Violence against women and the abortion ban in El Salvador.

Read the rest of Amnesty’s blog post here

Salvadoran women imprisoned for pregnancy complications

Hundreds of women are incarcerated across the world for having suffered miscarriages, stillbirths, and other obstetrical complications without medical attention. Many of them live in El Salvador, where they usually live in poverty and marginalisation. Some have been sentenced to decades behind bars.

Central America is notorious for anti-abortion punishment, with El Salvador being one of the countries most actively reinforcing the criminalisation of abortion. Central America Women’s Network’s (CAWN) partner in El Salvador, the Asociación Ciudadana (Group for the Decriminalization of Therapeutic Abortion) has launched the “We are all the 17” campaign.

This campaign is building global backing to demand pardons for 17 women, all from deprived backgrounds, who have been imprisoned for the “crime” of pregnancy complications.

The “We are all the 17” campaign appeals for solidarity from people who share the women’s bid to regain their freedom, return to their families and rebuild their lives.

Between 2000 and 2011, 129 women were prosecuted for abortion or aggravated homicide (related to the pregnancy product). This figure however represents a small percentage of the total of women who undergo an unsafe abortion in El Salvador, estimated to be 35,088.60 per year.

The majority are poor and young, with 84,5% of women accused under the draconian anti-abortion law under 30 years old. Only a fourth of the prosecuted women attended high school or university, and nearly 80% have no income or are on below minimum wage income.

Most of the women experienced obstetric problems during their pregnancies and gave birth without any medical assistance. The women were bleeding when they managed to reach a hospital. But when they asked for help, rather than gain support, the women were reported and prosecuted for aggravated murder.

A paper, ‘From Hospital to Jail’, to be launched by CAWN and the Reproductive Health Matters Journal explains that another effect of this restrictive legislation is the suicide rate of pregnant women which, according to the Maternal Death Surveillance System of the Ministry of Health from El Salvador, represented the third cause of maternal deaths in 2011. The paper establishes that the lack of alternatives in the case of an unwanted pregnancy is leading many women to commit suicide.

Under current Salvadoran law, anyone who performs an abortion with the woman’s consent, or a woman who self-induces or consents to someone else inducing her abortion, can be imprisoned.

Healthcare professionals are obliged to maintain patient confidentiality, but also to report any crimes to the police, including that of abortion.

• The screening of Life At Any Price and the discussion take place from 6.30-9.30 pm tonight at Amnesty International, 1 Easton Street, London WC1X 0DW. Free tickets can be reserved at http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/solidarity-event-international-day-of-action-for-the-decriminalisation-of-abortion-tickets-13065145201?aff=eac2

WATCH: Not a Vessel!!! by Helena Walsh

Helena Walsh is a member of the direct action prochoice performance collective Speaking of I.M.E.L.D.A but she is also a successful performance artist in her own right.

She filmed an exclusive short film for the opening of the Festival at the Peckham Pelican yesterday. Watch her stunning video on Ireland’s abortion laws here:

Hang up yer #knickersforchoice !!

Direct action prochoice performance collective Speaking of I.M.E.L.D.A have launched a new prochoice campaign today called #knickersforchoice

The ladies in red are launching the campaign with a hysterical video that is a play on the John Wayne classic The Quiet Man. If you would like to support the campaign, take a pic of your knickers and tag it #knickersforchoice. You can send it to Speaking of I.M.E.L.D.A via Twitter or Facebook

John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara in The Quiet Man

Why I joined Speaking of I.M.E.L.D.A.

A member of Speaking of I.M.E.L.D.A  explains in her own words what motivated her to join the direct-action prochoice performance collective:

What spurred me to join Speaking of I.M.E.L.D.A came from the shock of hearing a close friend’s story. Like me, my friend was born in the UK to an Irish family. We are both in our 20s, living life and enjoying ourselves. However now lives in Ireland whereas I have spent my life here.  

After falling pregnant by accident whilst using contraception, my friend wanted to travel to the UK to have an abortion. However, she could not get the time off of work. This led her to buying tablets from the internet to terminate the pregnancy herself. Thankfully she did not fall ill but she did keep this ordeal a secret from her family and friends, telling us only months later. I can only imagine how scared she must have been during this process. The risk she took was high, living in a rural community miles away from a hospital. It could have ended badly.

Hearing her story made me realise that she had been forced to make a decision alone that I would never have to make. Why should my reproductive rights be any different to a woman in another country? Every woman should be able to make such a life changing decision for herself.