Advocates are pushing back against Nicaragua's strict abortion ban, which can prevent some pregnant women from accessing life-saving treatment, Public Radio International's "The World" reports.
Background
Nicaragua has banned almost all abortion care since 2006, including in instances of rape and life endangerment. In some cases, physicians who are concerned they will be imprisoned for violating the ban have denied patients life-saving treatment for cancer and other conditions.
"The World" highlights one case in which physicians refused to provide chemotherapy to a pregnant woman with thyroid cancer because the treatment would terminate her pregnancy. Eventually, the woman discreetly received a medication abortion at a hospital after Catholics for the Right to Decide Nicaragua wrote a letter to the hospital's director.
Magaly Quintana of Catholics for the Right to Decide Nicaragua explained that the woman's mother asked the advocacy group for help. "If this young woman didn't know about the work we do, she would be dead," Quintana said.
According to Quintana, the advocacy group's discussions with health care providers in Managua indicate that the country's administration occasionally permits abortion care in limited circumstances. The advocacy group could not know whether hospitals in other areas of the country were tacitly permitted to provide abortion care in certain instances.
While some women in the country are able to obtain abortion care, the advocacy group IPAS estimates that at least 100 women in Nicaragua have died in the last five years because they were unable to obtain abortion care.
Activists seek to overturn abortion ban
Leslie Briseño, founder of the citizens' coalition Las Queremos Vivas, said, "I can't understand how one law can be so cruel to women." Briseño created the group after she obtained a secret medication abortion for an ectopic pregnancy.
Earlier this year, Las Queremos Vivas proposed legislation that would allow abortion care in cases of rape or life endangerment. The group collected 6,000 signatures across Nicaragua, as well as 15,000 online signatures.
According to "The World," the legislation was accepted for consideration by the Nicaraguan National Assembly in March, but lawmakers have not yet held a vote. Las Queremos Vivas is calling for a vote before the end of the year and says it will continue to fight for abortion rights if the measure is rejected.
"[I]t's necessary to realize that strict abortion laws aren't something that only affects a woman, it affects the entire family in this country," Briseño said (Kalantari, "The World," Public Radio International, 8/16).
