Abortion by country
Abortion is a highly controversial aspect of reproductive rights. While every country in Latin America has differing laws and regulations regarding abortion, the general sentiment is that of disapproval. Abortions in Latin America have had a history of being unsafe and illegal (especially for poor women), with recent improvements in both of those areas. Most of these improvements can be attributed to modern contraception, emergency care, as well as education. Similarly, advocacy and national conflict has grown surrounding abortion rights in Latin America. The region has seen a steady increase of feminist abortion activists, despite religion making the issue taboo. Strict abortion laws are accompanied by strict punishments. For example, in El Salvador, a woman can be jailed for up to 40 years for aborting. These punishments do not take into consideration the cause of the pregnancy, due to the fact that many of the imprisoned women were raped or had involuntary abortions International legislations also have an effect on abortion rights in Latin America. When U.S. President Donald Trump reinstated the Global Gag Rule on January 23, 2017, he prohibited all U.S. federal money from funding international organizations such as NGOs that "perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning".
Sexual violence In Latin America, sexual violence including rape, assault, harassment, and femicide are prominent issues that impact a person's sexual and reproductive agency and autonomy. Sexual autonomy means that there is informed and explicit consent, where both parties are aware of the presence and type of birth control being used. Lack of consent leads to more unintended pregnancies. Many regions in Latin America still force young girls to continue their pregnancies to term, even if was conceived through rape. The common patriarchal structures within Latin American households make young girls especially vulnerable to pregnancy by rape perpetuated by a person close to them. These gender dynamics also contribute to widespread
intimate partner violence (IPV), with 1 in 4 women having experienced IPV in their lifetime. Latin America also has an 11% rate of non-partner sexual violence, which is almost double the global average. Despite the fact that all countries in Latin America have a law or policy in place to protect against or punish sexual violence, many of them lack the effectiveness to make a difference.
Adolescent maternity and reproductive health Protecting the health of adolescents is an important
public health priority. Increased investment in adolescent reproductive health contributes to improving the overall status of women as well as the reduction in
poverty among families. Adolescent health must be contextualized within reproductive health and thus public health. Latin American government as a whole did not recognize early pregnancy in adolescents to be an issue until 1984 during the International Conference on Population in Mexico City. In Latin America, 38% of women become pregnant before the age of 20 and almost 20% of births are to teenage mothers. While an overall universal trend towards earlier average age of menstruation can be seen, the mean age of marriage has declined. This implies that adolescents who are coerced into marriage are unprotected in terms of reproductive rights for longer periods of time. According to the
UN Population Fund, young people have insufficient education and access to information and services that they need in order to make responsible decisions. The importance of education is exemplified by how girls in Latin America who have completed only up to primary education or less have a higher probability of adolescent pregnancy. For example, facilities are frequently in areas inaccessible to young individuals. For the purpose of privacy from their communities and families, young persons often seek services from facilities not located directly in their own neighborhoods. There is also a swath of data that is not collected by hospitals on abortions that are particularly "clandestine" / "backstreet". Studies have shown that in several Latin American countries, young single women are at a high risk for abortion which is not reflected by the number of married, older women who were hospitalized for abortions.
Genital mutilation While
genital mutilation is not a current issue in all Latin American countries, Colombia, Peru, Brazil, and Mexico all have histories of female genital mutilation within indigenous groups. The Embera and Nasa people in Colombia are the only groups in Latin America that are confirmed to still continue the practice. They are known for type 1 genital mutilation, which includes the partial or total removal of the clitoral glans or clitoral hood. This process can cause many health complications and even death. In Latin America, almost 8,400 women dies every year from a pregnancy-related complication. These maternal deaths are mostly preventable with quality care, access to contraception, and decreasing disparities in reproductive healthcare. In fact, 9 out of 10 maternal deaths are preventable if the woman is able to access prompt maternal healthcare and contraceptives. Indigenous women in particular face many barriers to accessing reproductive healthcare, resulting in high rates of adolescent pregnancy and unintended pregnancy. While several countries have taken steps towards closing healthcare gaps, inequities persist between and within countries. A woman's neighborhood can determine their housing stability, access to transportation, access to affordable, healthy food, and exposure to air and water pollution. All of these can have significant consequences on a person's health and access to medical care.
Diseases There is a distinct lack of information available to people with HIV and other
sexually-transmitted infections, creating a stigma around infected individuals. HIV and other STIs can pass from a birth giver to their baby during pregnancy, birth, or breastfeeding. Because of this risk, informed consent requires that sexual partners disclose any STIs they may be positive for. Besides STDs, the recent
Zika outbreak in Latin America has exposed the disparities in healthcare, with pregnant women in poverty most likely to be infected by Zika, which can have devastating effects on the pregnancy and the baby. Women's rights activists advocate for access to safe abortions for women diagnosed with Zika virus to avoid birth defects. Since 69 out of every 1,000 pregnancies in Latin America are unintended, control over a woman's own reproductive rights is an important way to prevent fetal defects and pregnancy complications.
Forced sterilization Due to the lack of education around reproductive health in Latin America, many
HIV positive women are forced to get sterilizations by their healthcare providers. Misinformation, financial coercion, intimidation, and fear-mongering are also used to deceive women into having sterilization procedures. Some doctors have even been reported to refuse to give care to an HIV-positive woman unless she gets sterilized.
Transgender women's rights The stigma and discrimination around transgender people in Latin America can significantly increase their susceptibility to sexual violence and decrease their access to testing and treatment for STDs. Because of this lack of resources, the prevalence of HIV in transgender women in Latin America is estimated to be 49% higher than the general population. Additionally, sexual violence perpetrated against transgender women can take various forms including physical harm, verbal harm, psychological harm, and financial harm from respected professionals, strangers, and people they know.
Sex education Most schools in Latin American countries teach some form of sexual education, but it is usually only focused to the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases rather than being a comprehensive education about sexual and reproductive rights. Due to the stigma around sex education, teachers in Brazil receive backlash for teaching sex education, despite it being a law to teach it. The lack of information about reproduction and sex causes adolescents to often incorrectly use or not use contraceptives at all.
Access to birth control Despite family planning being one of the most cost-effective means to maintain reproductive rights, 214 million women in developing countries, including Latin American countries are still not using modern contraceptives due to a lack of education and access. Use of modern contraceptives in Latin America has increased to 58% in 2019 giving the region as a whole the highest contraceptive prevalence rate in the developing world. The increased uptake of sexual and reproductive health and family planning services has resulted in a marked drop in total
fertility rates from approximately 4.6 children per woman in the 1970s to about 2.5 in 2013. In Latin America, multiple court decisions have granted personhood to fertilized eggs. These court decisions have been responsible for the extreme restrictions on access to emergency contraception within the region. Research reveals that there are several major barriers that young people face to accessing
contraception, primarily with acquiring services, especially in areas that contraceptives have strict laws on contraceptive use. The legal status of
oral contraception in Latin America varies by country and can. In 2009
Honduras banned the free distribution and sale of emergency contraceptives. == Abortion policies ==