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((Sergia Galván))

[Translation of an article from the website 7dias.com of Santo Domingo for March 17. See original here and related articles here and here. The Dominican legislature in September, 2009, approved a measure introduced by then President Leonel Fernández to amend the constitution to declare  the right to life inviolable beginning at conception.]

Santo Domingo, March 17 – After labeling the criminalization of abortion one of the most shameful provisions of the Dominican legal system, the Colectiva Mujer y Salud [Women and Health Collective] today called on congress to approve a revision of the penal code in order to free women and girls from forced motherhood who have been raped or whose health is in danger as a result of pregnancy.

The organization, led by Sergia Galván, holds that in this matter the Dominican Republic is decades behind the rest of the world, “being one of only six counties that still impose an absolute prohibition.” (more…)

Rousseff selects Eleonora Menicucci to head women’s ministry

[Translation of an article from Carta Maior of São Paulo for Feburary 8. See original here and related articles here and here. Newly appointed head of the Women’s Policy Secretariat, sociologist Eleonora Menicucci, is a former guerrilla fighter who spent time in prison together with President Dilma Rousseff during the military dictatorship. An outspoken feminist, she says she is bisexual and has had two abortions. Brazilian law makes abortion illegal unless the woman’s life is in danger or the pregnancy results from rape. A woman who terminates her pregnancy illegally can be imprisoned for one to three years.]  

By Najla Passos

Brasilia – The feminist movement has celebrated the choice of activist Eleonora Menicucci de Oliveira to head the Secretaria de Políticas para as Mulheres (SPM –Women’s Policy Secretariat). Aware of the limits inherent in leadership by any individual, activists for the cause believe that the new minister, who will assume office on Friday, January 10, will succeed in advancing the controversial debate on the legalization of abortion in Brazil. And they point out many other challenges Eleonora will face as head of the ministry. (more…)

[Translation of an article from ContraPunto of San Salvador for September 12. See original here.]

By Gloria Morán

San Salvador – Twelve women’s organizations united as the Articulación por el Derecho a Decidir (Coalition for the Right to Choose) on Monday declared their support for therapeutic abortion and called on the Salvadoran government to decriminalize it.

Their statement comes within the framework of the day for the decriminalization of abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean, to be observed next September 28.

Until 1997, the law in El Salvador permitted abortion in three circumstances: therapeutic abortion, when the life of the woman was in danger; eugenic abortion, when the fetus was not viable due to malformations; and ethical abortion, when the baby was the product of rape or incest. (more…)

[Translations of two articles on recent arrests of gay men in Puebla.]

Police in Puebla round up gays
Five arrested as “a nuisance and a danger to families”

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for March 10. See original here.]

by Javier Puga, América Farías and Arturo Alfaro

Puebla, Puebla, March 9 – Police in this city arrested five homosexuals and sent them before an examining magistrate for the “crime” of “being a nuisance and a danger to the families” who had accused them of practicing prostitution, the secretariat of public security and municipal transit reports.

The homosexuals were arrested by the K-9 Immediate Response Group, made up of elite agents of the municipal police, at the intersection of Bulevar Norte and Avenida 25 Poniente, one of the most important intersections in the capital.

The legal code of the city stipulates a fine equal to 10 to 100 days of the minimum wage, with 36 hours of detention or community service, for persons who “exercise, permit or are patrons of prostitution in public places,” but does not specify as a punishable offense being “a nuisance and a danger to families.” (more…)

Benedict XVI tries to exert influence on questions of abortion and gay marriage

[Translation of an article from El País of Madrid, Spain, for October 28. See original article here.]

By Juan Arias

Three days before the Brazilian presidential election to choose a successor to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in a campaign strongly dominated by debate of a religious nature, Pope Benedict XVI has thrown fuel on the flames with an address at the Vatican in which he asks the bishops to influence the faithful “with a moral judgement in politial questions.” His message could influence the vote on Sunday.

The theme of decriminalization of abortion has been a thorn in the side for both candidates, who were charged by Catholics and evangelicals alike with being in favor of abortion. Out of fear of losing the votes of Christians (60 percent of them Catholics, 30 percent evangelicals), Lula’s candidate, Dilma Rousseff, had to back down and with a letter to Catholics and evangelicals promised solemnly that if she becomes president she will not allow legislation on the questions of abortion and same-sex marriage. Rousseff had begun the campaign arguing for the decrimininaliztion of abortion as a question of public health. (more…)

Rousseff changes her position on abortion, which costs her two points

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for October 7. See original article here.]

by Arturo Cano

Rio de Janeiro, October 6 – At the beginning of last year, Brazilian media gave prominence to a terrible story: a nine-year-old girl, raped by her stepfather and pregnant with twins, received an abortion in a public clinic in Pernambuco. The doctors had determined that in her case the two exceptional circumstances in Brazilian law were met: the life of the young mother was in danger and the pregnancy was the result of rape

The reaction of the Catholic Church, represented in this case by the archbishop of Recife and Olinda, José Cardoso, left no doubt about how far the Brazilian hierarchy would go in its “defense of life”: it excommunicated the doctors and the girl’s family members, except for the stepfather who had abused the child since she was six years old. “We consider it illicit to end one life to save another,” declared the Catholic hierarch in his final judgement on the episode.

When this case is taken into account, things did not go so badly for Dilma Rousseff, the Workers’ Party candidate, and Lula’s, for the Brazilian presidency. The war against her because of her support for decriminalizing abortion, on which she reversed herself in the campaign, cost her only two points in the first round of the election, according to some polls.

But although Rousseff would like to end this chapter, the more conservative sectors of the churches (the Catholic and the numerous evangelicals) are not going to let go of it from now until October 31, the date of the runoff election.

Besides, now they have an invaluable ally in José Serra, the Social Democrat Party candidate and Rousseff’s opponent. (more…)

Three articles

Dilma makes amends with Catholics and evangelicals

[Translated from Hora do Povo of São Paulo for October 1. See original article here.]

The candidate of the Para o Brasil Seguir Mudando [So Brazil Will Continue Changing] coalition, Dilma Rousseff, held a meeting with representatives of catholics and evangelicals on Wednesday, September 29, in which she made a statement denying defamatory messages spread through the internet that accuse her of declaring that not even Jesus Christ could take this election away from her and that she would favor abortion and marriage between persons of the same sex.

“I reject totally statements that claim I used the name of Christ to say that not even he could defeat me in this election. It is slander, it is villany,” she said, emphasizing that these attacks represent a “defamatory campaign” against her candidacy. “These rumors come from the political underworld and are typical of the end of a campaign,” she declared. (more…)

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for September 8. See original article here. See also “More than 25 years in prison for having an abortion” posted here on August 22.]

by Carlos García

Guanajuato, Guanajuato, September 7 – “I am free because I am innocent. Justice has been served,” said Yolanda Martínez Montoya when she and six other women who had had miscarriages left the Guanajuato and Valle de Santiago prisons, where they were serving sentences of more than 25 years on murder charges.

On Tuesday a revision of the law on homicide of a family member went into effect, reducing to eight years the prison sentences of women convicted of killing a newly born infant. Because of this reform to the Penal Code, campesinas María Araceli Camargo Juárez, Ofelia Segura Frías, Yolanda Martínez Montoya, Liliana Morales Moreno, Ana Rosa Padrón Alarcón, Bonifacia Andrade and Susana Dueñas Rocha were released one by one, beginning at 5:30pm. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Contrapunto of El Salvador for August 30. See original article here.]

by Magdalena Flores

San Salvador – Feminist groups are not at all happy with President Mauricio Funes.

The Movimiento Amplio de Mujeres (Broad Movement for Women) demonstrated last Thursday near the presidential residence, west of the capital, to show their total rejection of recent statements by Funes, who a few days ago overruled the head of the Instituto Salvadoreño para el Desarrollo de la Mujer (ISDEMU – Salvadoran Institute for the Development of Women), Julia Evelyn Martínez, for signing a regional document that, among other things, called for revision of laws penalizing abortion.

Martínez participated last July in the XI Conferencia Regional sobre la Mujer de América Latina y el Caribe (Sixth Regional Conference on Women of Latin America and the Caribbean), a gathering that supported the Consenso de Brasilia (Brasilia Consensus), a document that deals with reproductive health, including abortion and birth control. (more…)

[Translation of a guest editorial from the Spanish publication La Nueva Tribuna for August 21. The writer is a Mexican political scientist.]

By César Morales Oyarvide

Guanajuato is a state in central Mexico, in the region known as El Bajío. Famous as the birthplace of independence – it was in the small town of Dolores that the armed struggle against the crown began – it has also been the birthplace of several movements of a reactionary nature, like sinarquismo, a proto-fascist political movement which developed from the cristero rebellion (1) and that was the enemy of the government that resulted from the Mexican revolution. (more…)