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Peru abortion ban: Feminists risk their safety to help women access terminations [1]

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Date: 2024-02 

Peru’s abortion ban isn’t preventing women and girls from seeking abortions, feminist activists have told openDemocracy, but it is endangering their lives.

This was the case for Valeria*, a 23-year-old from the southern Peruvian city of Ayacucho, who became ill after buying fake abortion pills on the black market in 2019.

“There is a street in Ayacucho known for abortions – there I found a number to call for pills and bought nine,” she told openDemocracy. “Each one cost 37 soles ($10). My boyfriend took no responsibility and I saved the money on my own.”

Valeria was told the pills were Misoprostol, a drug for stomach ulcers that causes contractions in the uterus and is recommended by the World Health Organisation as the safest drug for inducing abortions. In Peru, it can be bought in pharmacies for stomach ulcers with a doctor’s prescription.

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Unbeknownst to Valeria, she would have needed 12 of the pills for a safe abortion. She had some bleeding after taking the pills and thought the process had gone well. But two weeks later, she bled again and was taken ill with a fever. “The pills were not effective, it seems they were fake,” said Valeria, adding: “I was afraid to tell my mother or go to a hospital.”

Valeria borrowed some money and went to an illegal clinic, where she was offered a surgical abortion, but it cost 400 soles ($106) – far more than she had.

By the time she had raised enough money, Valeria was 20 weeks pregnant and desperate. She said: “I didn’t know if [the woman who performed the abortion] was a doctor, I didn't want to ask anything, I just wanted that nightmare to end.”

For Valeria, endangering her life with a black market abortion was the only option. Terminations are permitted in Peru only when a medical board says the health or life of the pregnant person is in danger and are illegal in all other circumstances, including when a pregnancy is the result of a woman or a child being raped.

Having an abortion is punishable by a prison sentence of up to five years. More often, though, those who are convicted receive a suspended sentence and are ordered to pay a fine and regularly check in at a police station or court for a set number of years.

Despite the ban, a 2005 study estimated that 370,000 abortions are carried out in Peru every year. One in five women aged between 18 and 49 has had at least one termination, according to a 2018 survey by the Centre for the Promotion and Defence of Sexual and Reproductive Rights.

Unsafe abortions are the fourth biggest cause of maternal death in Peru – between 50 and 70 women die from post-abortion complications each year.

Peruvian politicians last considered decriminalising abortion for rape victims in 2014, but the bill was shelved the following year due to lack of support. Last month Congress passed a law that grants embryos and foetuses personhood rights, including the right to identity.

The country has been in a serious political crisis since former president Pedro Castillo tried to dissolve Congress last December (and ended up ousted and imprisoned). Ultra-conservative legislators hold the majority of Congress seats.

“In a context of democratic crisis, in the face of conservative positions, we women end up being the most harmed, along with the LGTBIQ+ population; sexual and reproductive rights and policies end up not being applied,” Elga Prado, a coordinator of sexuality and bodily autonomy for feminist group Manuela Ramos Movement, told openDemocracy.

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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/peru-abortion-bad-feminists-support-women-black-market-terminations/

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