Abortion and reproductive choice
ON October 17, 1990, in great secrecy, the deputies of the most "marginalized" state of the Mexican republic,
Chiapas, voted for the decriminalization of abortion.
When the news finally appeared in the press, more than a month later, it was greeted with general amazement.
November 25, 1991 • #217 International Viewpoint in Mexico
ANNE DURIEUX
HE GOVERNOR claimed that he was responding to proabortion pressure from a group of feminists in Chiapas, the GAM', a claim quickly denied by the latter. While feminist groups throughout the country hailed this "victory" and demanded that all the Mexican states should in their turn decriminalize abortion, the powerful Catholic hierarchy called on the population to demonstrate en masse against this "crime", quickly winning the support of the Mexican branch of the powerful United States-based organization, "Pro-Vida".
On December 31, the deputies suspend ed the law and asked for an opinion from the National Commission of Human Rights (recently created by the federal governor, and a body which has no powers of decision). This was essentially an exercise in buying time to prepare for the next elections which were to take place in August 1991.
Abortion — a taboo subject The first feminist reactions to the Chiapas events were rapid, although the different groups are hardly used to dealing with the question of abortion, virtually taboo until now. They rapidly developed a basic strategic conception, "voluntary maternity", which has three basic dimensions:
• the right of women to control their fertility by all necessary means, the right to contraception and to free abortion on demand, the right to a complete sexual education;
• the taking on of responsibility by men in such matters as contraception and paternity;
• the taking on of responsibility by the state; the right to maternity in good health conditions, collective services for mothers and children (crèches, schools, day nurseries, and so on) and an end to discrimination against mothers and pregnant women in employment.
Their perspective is that of the right of women to choose maternity in a framework of the free disposal of their bodies and their sexuality. The struggle to extend the right to abortion is developing in Chiapas and throughout the whole country.
In the front line, women in Chiapas were the first to establish a regular structure, including the three feminist groups in San Cristobal?, as well as trade union and political organizations (like the PRT — Revolutionary Workers Party, Mexican section of the Fourth International — and UGOCEP, a democratic teachers trade union); the Chiapas Front for Voluntary Maternity was set up in February 1991.
At the national level, the feminist structures which existed previously (like the network against violence) were inadequate. The idea of forming a National Front for Voluntary Maternity was put forward from the outside, but it was only belatedly concretized, following the National Forum for Voluntary Maternity at Tuxtla Gutierrez in June 1991.
This delay is explained by the vast size of the country, the difficulties of communication and the chronic lack of resources which the women's groups suffer from. More profoundly, there are undoubtedly tensions between the groups based in the capital and those from the provinces. The women of Mexico City often have a longer feminist experience, and tend to be more academic and more influenced by "international" feminism, which is not necessarily adapted to the realities of rural Mexico. Thus, the slogan of "voluntary maternity" is not always understood by women from the popular sectors, who confuse it with the slogan of Pro-Vida.
Having established adequate structures and an axis of work, women have thrown themselves into activity; this has includ-
MEXICO ed the collection of signatures in favour of abortion, demonstrations in the provinces and in the capital (on January 15, a march to the National Commission of Human Rights was organized, on March 8 between five and eight thousand women demonstrated in Mexico City in support of voluntary maternity, from June 19-22 women from all over the country assembled before the national representation of the Chiapan government in Mexico City to demand decriminalization), interviews with the Governor of Chiapas, forums, debates, conferences, press campaigns in the feminist review "Fem" and in the bimonthly feminist supplement "La Doble Jornada" of the daily "La Jornada", and graffiti on the respectable provincial walls of San Cristobal de Las Casas. They have also appealed for international feminist solidarity through a campaign of telegrams. Frictions between capital and provinces
However, the difficulties are numerous. The frictions, whether benign or more profound, between the feminists of the capital and those in Chiapas are an obstacle to the organization of national meetings. Some groups regret having launched themselves so totally into the battle, consequently neglecting their own work or their consolidation, indeed even imperiling their hard won reputations.
The government of Chiapas has waged a 1. The GAM is a support group for victims of sexual violence. There are two other women's groups, the COMAL Citlalmina, which works in the areas of sexual education and the organization of women, and Antsetik, a university group which researches on women's problems. None of these three groups had ever publicly posed the problem of abortion, considering it still 23 too delicate in such a Catholic country.
International Viewpoint #217 • November 25, 1991
Some cold facts:
* Average number of children per Mexican woman; 6
* "Minimum" wage; $200 a month
* Number of Illegal abortions every year; 2 million (1.7 million of the women concerned are Catholle)
* 78% of women who abort are "of Ilmited economle resources"
* 63% of them are married or live in
* Each year one milion minors become pregnant
• Each year the hospitals receive 780,000 women who suffer from grave complications following clandestine abortions
* Abortion Is the fifth cause of maternal mortality in Mexico; 50,000 women die each year - * war of attrition in the hope that the womens movement would run out of steam. The lack of financial resources has not helped. Above all, the feminist groups have not yet had the time to do real in depth work with women from the popular sectors, which would allow them to build up mass support among the people. Furthermore, many are disappointed by the slowness of the process and worried by the violent reaction of the Church and
The reaction of the anti-abortionists has been swift and violent. The conservative bishops and archbishops were the first to mount the battlements, in 1990, calling on the faithful to go out into the street. In January, some doctors associations joined in the fray, to be followed very rapidly by Pro-Vida. Pro-Vida already existed in Mexico, carrying out poster campaigns against abortion. Since the "affair" began, the organization has deployed all its resources, and they have been responsible for the widespread distribution of the famous film, "The Silent
The situation was complicated with the approach of the legislative and senatorial elections in August 1991. These elections were held to renew the various State assemblies, including that of Chiapas. Members of the Chiapan Front met the Governor to attempt to obtain the assurance that the question would be settled by the deputies before the election. promised everything, hoping thus to stop abortion and the problems of women from becoming themes of the campaign, something which would enormously embarrass the PRI. Parallel to his meetings with the feminists, the Governor was negotiating with the Catholic hierarchy in an attempt Church. One way or another, in the end, the question of abortion emerged as a cen• tral theme of the electoral campaign.
On the one hand the National Front for Voluntary Maternity gained the unconditional support of the PRT
(which ran several feminist candidates, a lesbian and a prostitute, all clearly in favour of abortion) of the
PRD (the "left" Cardenist Party, some of whose candidates supported abortion while others sought to avoid the question), as well as a small number of women supporters of the PRI (which traditionally seeks to control womens organizations).
Pro-Vida launched a virulent campaign of denunciation of the proabortion parties, involving a massive poster campaign denouncing the PRT,
PRD and the PFCRN and supporting the three anti-abortion parties (the far right PAN, and two satellites of the
This electoral campaign has had the merit of obliging the parties to take a position, and it has been an opportunity for feminists to gain a wider hearing, not only on abortion but on the situation more generally and their demands. But this opportunity was not taken to the full, inasmuch as women and feminists are not yet in a position to impose themselves as a coherent social group whose votes could swing the next election, and because no consensus exists, nor even a massive majority of women resolutely in favour of abortion.
A certain number of men support abortion, although rather few overall. Some support it because it allows them to avoid wearing a condom, judged to be incompatible with Mexican virility. Others are supportive because of political consciousness or because they have no desire to have children. The last and most cynical group are those who support abortion out of obedience to the IMF. President Salinas is part of this group - international demographic conferences are convinced that underdevelopment is caused by over population and that the simplest way to reduce the number of poor is to stop them from reproducing. This is probably why, as President and PRI leader, Salinas has launched a trial balloon through the vote of the PRI-dominated assembly in Chiapas for the decriminalization of abortion.
Attempts to lower birth rate
The events in Chiapas are only a continuation of a demographic policy which seeks to drastically lower the rate of growth of the population (from 4 to 1% by the beginning of the third millennium, a condition laid down by the IMP to enable Mexico to compete economically and favour its integration into the single Cana-
This policy began to develop in the 1970s, with the widespread forced sterilization of Indian women, particularly in the highlands of Chiapas. It continued with the setting up of "Family Planning"
the massive distribution of second rate IUDs, often inserted without the consent of the women and in notoriously inadequate hygienic conditions, the injection of contraceptive hormones in massive doses (something which is forbidden in the rich countries), and above all the promotion of the tying up of tubes as the privileged means of contraception, with the minimum of information on the consequences (while this is often practiced without genuine consultation with the woman, it is refused to women who ask for it without written permission from the husband).
In these conditions, feminists are well aware that the right to obtained, is no gift. If the PRI should finally decide to impose this measure, it remains to women themselves to transform it into a conquest, a genuinely emancipatory instrument under their control.
The outcome, then, is uncertain. The other major unknown is the current state of the bargaining between the PRI and the Catholic church. The two Mexican archbishops, one of them the archbishop of Chiapas, have clearly come out against abortion, although they favour a more responsible maternity and paternity, less machismo and more political, economic and social justice.
### Church and state
Moreover, since the visit of John Paul II to Mexico (his itinerary included a trip to Chiapas) relations between the Vatican and Salinas have warmed up dramatically. The past quarrels, the constitutional separation of church and state, the secularism of the Revolution, have all been forgotten.
The debate provoked by the decriminalization of abortion in Chiapas has at least had the merit of bringing into broad daylight the scandalous fact that two million women are transformed into criminals each year, and that many bear the mental and physical scars of this. It has also revived and given new perspectives to Mexican women and feminists, as well as a lot of headaches. It has allowed the different parties to take a clearer position on the question of women and to situate themselves in relation to the patriarchy. Whatever the outcome of the current struggle, Mexican feminists have a lot of work in front of them, faced with machismo, the Church, the neo-liberal patriarchy, an economic crisis which deepens constantly and the unbridled imperialism of the Yankee 2. GAM, which has only existed for two years, is in the process of defining itself, and does not wish to involve itself too fully in the "hol" question of abor-
Antsetik is no longer particularly interested in the question of abortion, whilst in COMAL Citlalmina, which has only existed as a group for one year and is barely consolidated, some lesbians are worried that the question of abortion is taking absolute priority over the
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