Portugal na Revista Feminista "Bitch"

A situação (vergonhosa) do aborto em Portugal tem estado nas bocas do mundo nos últimos meses, não só devido ao referendo, mas também por causa dos mais recentes julgamentos e condenações de mulheres que abortaram e de médic@s e enfermeiras.

No final de Agosto, Juliet Eastland escreveu um post sobre Portugal no blog da excelente revista feminista americana Bitch. Nesse texto, Eastland relaciona as condenações em tribunais portugueses com a actual situação política nos EUA, em que cada vez são mais frequentes e intensas as pressões da administração Bush para tornar mais restritiva a legislação sobre o aborto. Noutros países da Europa e do Mundo (como é o caso, muito recente, da Nicarágua) verificam-se tendências semelhantes, às quais é fundamental estar atent@. Reproduzimos aqui o artigo de Eastland, que pode também ser lido aqui.


«Portugal's Not So Far Away After All

Here's a recent story that didn't make it into the U.S. news: A Portuguese court sentenced a doctor to three years and eight months in jail for performing illegal abortions. (Abortion is legal in Portugal only in cases of rape or maternal endangerment.) The doctor's clinic assistant received 16 months in the pokey, and the three criminals—sorry, women—accused of having the abortions were handed jail terms of six months each. No word, naturally, on whether the impregnators were similarly punished.

The Kaiser Family Foundation emailed the story to its subscribers, and the Feminist Majority Foundation reported it on their website, but a search of mainstream media outlets turned up nary a mention. Have we become so inured to—or dispirited by—this country's march to the right that anti-choice news is no longer news? Or are Portugal's anti-abortion laws (some of the strictest in Europe) simply not worth covering in the U.S., where abortion has, at least in name, been legal since 1973?

In fact, the actions of the Portuguese court are uncomfortably relevant. "Pro-life" righteousness sends approximately 10,000 Portuguese women annually into hospitals for medical complications from illegal abortions. We can expect similar figures in the U.S. if

our proudly anti-intellectual president and his administration continue down the road to outlawing abortion while ignoring the fact that criminalizing the practice won't end it. (In the U.S., "illegal abortion still accounted for 17% of all deaths attributed to pregnancy and childbirth" in 1965, according to the Guttmacher Institute—this even after the introduction of antibiotics, critical in treating post-botched-abortion infections. Factor in unreported deaths and the actual number most likely soars.)

So let's hear more about Portugal. If we're so eager to criminalize abortion, let's read about the consequences. A headline might even catch our president's eye. Now that would be news.»

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