Prohibition of Abortion As A Form of Birth Control
Abortion in Argentina remains prohibited as of 2010, and is legal only in cases of rape, or where the life of the mother in danger. The Argentine Penal Code 846, moreover, was amended in 2008 to place stricter sanctions against women who seek an abortion, as well as any medical staff involved in the act. These limitations notwithstanding, an estimated 500,000 abortions are performed annually in Argentina (compared to around 700,000 live births), resulting in at least 10,000 hospitalizations due to complications (estimates vary widely) and around 100 deaths (a third of all maternal mortality). Access to contraceptives has long been discouraged by a succession of Argentine governments, which instead reward large families with subsidies that rise disproportionately with the seventh child; though Argentine women have long had among Latin America's lowest birth rates (averaging 2.3 births per woman in recent years), the policy has tended to encourage higher birth rates in the lowest strata of society (including women least able to afford large families). Contraceptives are widely used by sexually active Argentine women, as condoms are by Argentine men, and a variety of birth control products can be obtained freely in pharmacies; the Argentine government began their free distribution in 2003.
Read more about this topic: Women In Argentina
Famous quotes containing the words prohibition, abortion, form, birth and/or control:
“No political party can ever make prohibition effective. A political party implies an adverse, an opposing, political party. To enforce criminal statutes implies substantial unanimity in the community. This is the result of the jury system. Hence the futility of party prohibition.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“... abortion opponents love little babies as long as they are in somebody else’s uterus.”
—Joycelyn Elders (b. 1933)
“Nothing comes to pass in nature, which can be set down to a flaw therein; for nature is always the same and everywhere one and the same in her efficiency and power of action; that is, nature’s laws and ordinances whereby all things come to pass and change from one form to another, are everywhere and always; so that there should be one and the same method of understanding the nature of all things whatsoever, namely, through nature’s universal laws and rules.”
—Baruch (Benedict)
“Not yet the thirtieth year, the thirtieth
Station where time reverses his light heels
To run both ways, and makes of forward back;
Whose long co-ordinates are birth and death....”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“In view of the fact that the number of people living too long has risen catastrophically and still continues to rise.... Question: Must we live as long as modern medicine enables us to?... We control our entry into life, it is time we began to control our exit.”
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