Abortion in Cuba: Another Pending Debate
Irina Echarry
HAVANA TIMES — A sad feeling got hold me of some years back while waiting at the abortion ward in Havana’s Maternidad Obrera hospital. Even many days later, I could still remember the scene in which each of the girls who were waiting for their turn would recite, like a poem they had learnt by heart, the abortions the women in their families had had, or how they would casually say: “this thing’s goin’ out today.”
A phrase would resonate in my mind and get in the way of any attempt at reflecting on the issue: there’s something wrong with a country where women go to get abortions en masse. And I stick to this.
Abortion is a complex issue that stirs up passions as well as ethical, religious, philosophical and biological debates. Generally, the person voicing an opinion – no matter what camp they belong to, in favor or against – denies that the opposite opinion has any validity.
I use the word “camp” because, at times, these debates recall battles where many think they are the sole owners of reason. The issue is complicated precisely because we must reflect on it without assuming an extreme position – it is a question of bringing people’s attention to bear on the need to respect our rights and our freedom. What rights are at stake in this issue is something we have to think about carefully.
The first thing I’ve noticed about these debates is that people speak from the here-and-now, that their arguments insist on how things should be now. The majority aren’t aware of why and how much people have struggled around the world to legalize abortion.
In countries where abortion is illegal, women are subjected to the designs of the powerful, who, insensitive to the facts, approve such laws and condemn them to a life they are unable to control or shape in accordance with their wants and needs, limiting sexuality to reproduction.
This is why people in Europe are again mobilizing in view of the danger posed by Spain’s abortion law reform, to prevent (as they successfully did last century) such control over the body and female sexuality.
For me, anti-abortion laws can be interpreted in two ways, for, while glorifying life, they also condemn life to suffering: the newborn was neither wanted nor planned nor even well received and, at the same time, women (and sometimes men) have to shoulder the responsibility of caring for the unwanted child.
Many women have to resort to alternative forms of abortion that put their lives and their fertility at risk, or resign themselves to an unhappy life with a child they cannot nurture or whose needs they cannot satisfy.
It’s natural that there should be talk of a right to life, but the child isn’t the only one this right applies to. The life of the woman in question is also at stake from every conceivable angle, for the pregnancy involves her freedom and her body and can dramatically change the course of her life (her aspirations, projects, plans, wishes). Not involving women in decisions over their own bodies is therefore misguided. I, and not the State, should make decisions about my own life.
If the decision to interrupt a pregnancy becomes an official prohibition, we cease to have control over our lives. Recently, I met with some friends and we were debating whether Cuba, given the increasingly cozy relationship between the government and Church, could one day outlaw abortion. I don’t know – I hope not.
I do believe, however, that there should be a broad debate where everyone who wants to – be it a man or a woman – can express their ideas or views on the issue. To date, the subject continues to be addressed by a handful of specialists, leaving out those who stand to lose or gain the most: women, particularly the large numbers of women who fill the obstetrics wards around the country every day.
To find a solution to these problems, we have to look at the roots and try to eliminate them (something that can’t be achieved overnight). Most of the pregnancies that are voluntarily interrupted in Cuba are the result of irresponsible sexual relations. The precarious financial situation of families, the lack of proper housing, the scant prospects of a better future and other such situations complete the picture.
Though there are some ad campaigns dealing with the issue – televised spots that explain abortion is not a contraceptive measure – they are not well divulged. There isn’t a real, nationwide campaign around this issue. Nor are men encouraged to consider themselves involved, quite the contrary: men are not allowed in the abortion ward. They aren’t even allowed to stand by the entrance to give support to their partners who, though they may express themselves in a cold and impersonal tone, are actually vulnerable, fragile and depressed when they come out of that room.
We have to take action and soon. We must also encourage a healthier sexuality where the use of contraceptives isn’t the responsibility of one of the partners and isn’t practiced after intercourse, but preventively. We must underscore the positive sides of family planning, make adoption easier and, above all, instill a love for life in people – not teach them to consider it sacred, but to value it in all senses of the word.
It’s curious that most of the girls in that waiting room weren’t even aware of what they were doing. As such, they were incapable of an ethical or any type of questioning, they were only conscious of the impossibility of remaining pregnant. It was a pure survival impulse.
None of them spoke of the burden of having to end a life or the sadness involved in being forced to do so. The phrases I heard the most there alluded to the burden a child represents. Should we therefore consider them murderers?
It would perhaps be healthy for the country (both society and the State, which is responsible for public health) to see things in a different light, without going to any extreme. The voluntary interruption of pregnancy must be a woman’s right (following a conversation with the man involved), but rights should be exercised responsibly.
I hate this and no matter where i live i will always hate the murders of the unborn
Thanks for the rationality, logic, statistics in your most effective rebuttal.
The right’s simple answers to complex situations never fails to astound me in just how obviously wrong one can be without even realizing it.
What most anti-abortion people proclaim is the right to life .
Most of these people are also on the right politically and also are against aid to the poor .
Once these unwanted children are born, all caring for that child ends and they become lazy deadbeats who are to be denied financial aid/welfare/food stamps in the eyes of the right .
The reality is that most anti-abortionists are really not so much pro-life as they are pro-birth .
After these kids are born into poverty, the job of the anti-abortion crowd in creating a decent environment for this children is finished.
Abortion is a solution where poverty is a problem , where providing for the child while working is difficult to impossible .
In a socialist society where the needs of every human are guaranteed , the need for economic abortions shrinks .
You know what being a single parent involves in a capitalist economy.
Thats a loaded question, but lets try to answer it. I’ll base my analysis on the following article and as usual I’m taking the statistics at face value for the sake of the argument.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chuck-collins/wealth-of-forbes-400-bill_b_4617743.html
Since the article refers to “households”, I’m using the demographic statistics from wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity
In case you don’t want to bother with the references, the statistics I’m using in the argument are the following:
-US total population: 308.7 million
-US African-American population: 38.9 million
-US African-American households: 14 million
-US African-American household size: 2.77
-US national net worth: 77 Trillion
-US African-American wealth: 2 Trillion
-Us African-American house ownership rate: 43.1%
Also, the article points to a 2010 survey with more details about the household income:
-Household income, non-hispanic whites: $86800
-Household income, african-american: $41400
-Household net worth, non-hispanic whites: $593300
-Household net worth, african-american: $84500
As you can see, there is a HUGE racial divide in the US population regarding to wealth distribution. But let’s get to the meat of the issue.
Adding 20 million more African-Americans in 40 years is not going to have a significant impact the number of households, since half of them are going to be under 20 years old. The other half accounts for 10 million people and applying the current household average size will be 3.6 million more households, and that being generous.
So, now you have a population of 58.9 million with 17.6 million households and an average household size of 3.34 and no reason whatsoever to assume the average income per household increased meaningfully.
Well, congratulations, now you manage to make them poorer, since the income per capita fell from $14945 to $12395 or roughly 20% and for an insignificant demographics gain that will get them nowhere.
What you gave them is a poorer childhood, less chances to get a proper education, that directly translates in crappier jobs and the worsening of all social indicators.
To put it in perspective, 20 million more people put African-Americans in the same ballpark than Hispanics and you can’t say they have it better in any meaningful way even if they are “working and speaking from themselves”.
Margaret Sanger (my spelling error above) was no limousine liberal. She was born and raised in a poor working class environment and lived her entire life as a committed socialist. The plain fact is her baldly racist attitudes were part and parcel of her political ideology. She did not work for a well funded organization during her lifetime and therefore your pat explanation of corruption of ideals via public funding largesse is unfounded.
Today the organization she help found, Planned Parenthood, is the single largest provider of abortions in the US. Their business model is driven toward getting more women to abort, a highly profitable procedure for their organization. It’s bad for business to teach self-responsiblity. Are you sure you really understand what PP is really doing, rather than what you would like to think it is doing?
Ask yourself this question: over that past 4 decades were the solutions to the problems African-American faced best dealt with by aborting 20 million babies, or would African-Americans be better off if there were 20 million more of them alive, working and speaking for themselves today?
Yes, I am well aware of the ‘limousine liberal’ Margaret Singer. Unfortunately, there is always the risk of less than honest agendas when public programs seek public funding.
I trust you are aware of the racist attitudes of Margaret Singer, the founder of Planned Parenthood. She advocated birth control and abortion as a means to reduce the number of criminals, birth defects, Negros and other socially undesirable elements. Given that half of all abortions in the US are performed on African Americans, and that half of the more than 40 million abortions performed since Roe vs Wade have been of African-American fetuses, that part of her plan at least, seems to be working.
Sadly, Planned Parenthood does not spend much of their profits from abortion teaching sexual responsibility. That would cut into their lucrative bottom line.
Uggh, the linked article is not worth reading because of the author bias and the way he mixes fact, opinion and anecdote as if it were the same thing. In the wikipedia page there is another reference to raw statistics
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/ab-cuba.html
I can’t vow for that source but at least you can focus on the data and make your own conclusions.
…and use the revenues collected from abortions to pay for a campaign teaching teens to be more sexually responsible.
Some informative 1995 statistics on abortion in Cuba, from a Cuban doctor:
http://www.pop.org/content/abortion-and-infanticide-in-cuba-1089
There is no need to debate this issue: the abortion is a hard fought right and it must remain as an option for women. What we should discuss is what to do as society to promote responsible behavior and minimize the need for it as much as possible.
My take on the issue is that charging a non trivial, yet not onerous amount of money for the procedure (except for victims of rape or when the life of mother or the viability of the fetus is compromised) is enough deterrent to the casual use of abortion as a contraception measure.