Priests' law of death

Published 01 May 2008

Observations on Nicaragua and abortion

Nicaragua's decision to ban all types of abortion, including those ruled necessary to save the life of the mother, is drawing criticism from human rights and women's groups for causing unnecessary deaths and denying unrelated health services to women. The law, promoted by the Catholic Church and passed by the national assembly in October 2006, has the support of the left-wing government. It makes the country one of only four in the world where abortion is illegal in all cases.

According to Nicaragua's health ministry, there have been 82 maternal deaths since the law came into effect in November 2006. Enforcement is strong and a great deal of publicity has been given to the sentence - up to six years' imprisonment - that doctors can receive for performing abortions.

Of course, those who can afford private (and secret) procedures can easily obtain them, as is the case throughout Latin America. This means that the law mainly affects the poorest. "Women with money suffer the same circumstances. The difference is that they can pay a doctor, and, like they say, money talks. But poor women need the services of the state, and that's where the doors are closed," said Martha Flores, a social worker from the barrios of the capital, Managua.

It is little surprise, then, that more than 80 per cent of the reported maternal deaths have occurred in poor rural areas. One doctor who admitted to performing abortions, and who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said: "The price has risen, so what happened? It's turned into a business, that's all that happened when they passed the law. On the other hand, the poor class, we are killing the women. Simple."

The US-based NGO, Human Rights Watch, argues that the effect of the law goes beyond the issue of abortion. HRW researcher, Angela Heimburger, claims that some doctors in Nicaragua are now afraid to provide even legal health services to pregnant women for fear of being prosecuted. "We've talked to a lot of doctors who have witnessed cases of unnecessary deaths, especially involving miscarriage, because women were not treated immediately."

The government does not keep official statistics on the effects of the law, so the actual number of deaths directly resulting from its introduction is hard to ascertain.

Women's rights groups are currently suing the government over the legislation, saying it violates a fundamental right to life. If the case is turned down in Nicaragua's Supreme Court, it could move to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. But neither court is as influential in Nicaragua as the Catholic Church.

Roughly 85 per cent of Nicaraguans are Catholic, and, as a result, the religious values of the people are important to the government. Even President Daniel Ortega, a man with an unimpeachable leftist background, supports the abortion law.

A close friend of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, Ortega spent years in prison under the dictator Somoza, whom he eventually overthrew in 1979 with his Sandinista guerrilla revolution.

Ortega and his government spent the 1980s under attack from the US-sponsored Contra forces and eventually lost power. A Marxist atheist for most of his life, he returned to the Church and changed his mind on the abortion issue shortly before being re-elected in 2006.

According to official Catholic doctrine, abortion is always the intentional taking of a life and is therefore never permitted. The duty of any doctor is to save the mother and the baby, no matter how unlikely the survival of both may be; the life of the mother is considered no more valuable than that of the unborn child.

Father Henry Moreno, a leader in the pro-life movement in Managua, believes "the protocol of the ministry of health is to save both lives . . . if during the process one dies, there is no crime, no sin, no excommunication". But, "if you intentionally interrupt the process that's when it's a sin and that should never be condoned".

There are a few dissenting voices within the Church, with some, such as the theologian Christopher Kaczor, arguing that in certain cases the foetus could be considered an unintentional material aggressor whose life may be taken, unintentionally, in an attempt to save the mother.

HRW's report, Over Their Dead Bodies, argues that the problem is not so much one of the legal application of a strict interpretation of Church doctrine, but the climate of fear created among doctors.

The challenge is to find room for compromise without directly stepping on the toes of the Church. Even with the Sandinistas back in power, a Nicaraguan government cannot afford to lose the support of the Catholic Church and those who follow its teachings.

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3 comments from readers

hauke
03 May 2008 at 04:45

"a man with an unimpeachable leftist background"??? Have the authors visited Nicaragua during the last decade? Ortega is leftist only in rhetoric. At least since the "Pacto" -the agreement on sharing influence in various state institutions between Ortega and then right-wing president Aleman- it has become obvious that the FSLN leadership lacks any kind of ethics they were supposed to have as Nicaragua's "vanguard".

Furthermore, the prohibition of therapeutic abortions was not pressed upon him -as presented here- but actively picked up by Ortega. After all, therapeutic abortions were allowed by Nicaragua's constitution for roughly a century before being made an issue recently.

emmagold
05 May 2008 at 02:27

This is all absolutely appalling! Women DYING to satisfy the Catholic church's dogma that the lives of foetuses (who are, in any case, only POTENTIAL "unborn children" since they could be miscarried or stillborn) are more important than the lives of the ALREADY-EXISTING women in whose (unwilling/unchosen!) bodies they're growing! And no doubt these people would describe themselves as "pro-life"; they're obviously NOT "pro" the lives of these women! If they're THAT opposed to abortion they should develop contraception that is 100% effective, free, and available; or possibly techniques, if these would be physically possible, to transplant a foetus from the womb of one woman to that of another.

NO ONE has the right to tell anyone what to do on such an issue which affects only the woman herself and her partner. The unwillingly pregnant woman is the ONLY person who knows her personal circumstances and how being forced to bring her pregnancy to term would affect her and any already existing children she may have. What happens to the children whose birth is forced by this extremely draconian Nicaraguan law? what sort of lives are they likely to lead? Either their mothers will be expected (or possibly even FORCED) to take them and bring them up (in which case they're very likely to be abused emotionally, and/or physically, every time they do something to annoy or anger their mothers) or they will probably be sent to children's "Homes" where, again, they will probably suffer abuse in various forms. I think it's unlikely they'd be adopted since Nicaragua is such a poor country.

Actually I'm not sure why I'm spending time speculating on the effect on the children of forcing women to bring their pregnancies to term (though I do acknowledge that the situation is hardly the fault of these children and they shouldn't have to suffer for it). But the main issue is one of human rights for the WOMEN: what should be the absolute right not to have anything (such as forced childbirth) done to your body against your will.

While commenting on this issue I would like to bring to readers' attention the fact (of which many of you may already be aware) that anti-choice (which is how I would describe "pro-life" ) MPs intend to use the current debate on the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Bill to restrict abortion rights for British women: to reduce the time limit, possibly to as little as 13 weeks and, in tandem with that, to make it a requirement for women seeking abortion to go for counselling; these measures, if passed, would effectively ban abortion altogether since by the time most women had realised they were pregnant, and then applied for this counselling and undergone it, 13 weeks would probably have already elapsed. The pro-choice campaign Abortion Rights is organising a lobby of Parliament on Wednesday 7th May; please see their web-site for details.

robbob
29 July 2009 at 17:12