Response Essay: Legal Abortion July 17, 2013

In May, I read the article Salvadorian Court Denies Abortion to Ailing Woman by Karla Zabaludovsky and Gene Palumbo on the New York Times. The text is about a woman that had lupus and she got pregnant, the fetus had a terrible birth defect called anencephaly, where the skull and the brain are not completely developed, so the baby had no chance to survive. Doctors were in favor of the abortion to protect her life, but the court and the laws didnt. In Chile is the same than in El Salvador, last week we knew about a 11-year old girl who was raped and as in Chile the law is so strong and the abortion is not legally accepted, she is obligated to become a very young mother. What first impressed me was that in Chile as in El Salvador, the Vatican, Malta, Nicaragua and Dominican Republic, the abortion is not legal in any case. Chilean law is considered one of the most restrictive in the world, so if a woman had a risky pregnancy or the baby come with a defect, as in the article, or she is raped, as the Chilean girl, or the woman just doesnt want to become a mother yet, she cannot decide to end the pregnancy Why ban and not to educate? Is it necessary that a law leads how to live our life? I think not. It is incredible how laws can decide the course of our lives. In Chile we have the law that prohibited the abortion since 1973 by the dictator A. Pinochet and the following governments up to the current one had opposed any loosening of the prohibition. I know its hard to think about the abortion, but I cannot understand how a law has the power of saying what to do with our bodies and our lives, the decision must be ours. Finally women should fight for a legal and safe abortion, lots of women around the world die due to an unsafe abortion, it is important to fight for the right of choosing what to do

with our body and life, and also to fight for a good education about sex. The solution is not to ban everything, the solution is to educate about the topics, to choose whether or not we want to be mothers. The story of the Salvadorian women and the Chilean 11-year old girl made me think about the lack of these six countries, including Chile, on the education about sex and also how women, nowadays, are so subjected to following laws that take decisions on how our life. Abortion should be legal in every case, because we have the decision. Women have to fight for their rights and decide what to do with their body sex education to decide, contraceptives to avoid abortion, legal abortion for avoiding death.