They are your rights, assert them

"A key issue in the election campaign"

Those of us who are going to vote wonder

¿What do POLITICAL CANDIDATES propose on this issue?

Based on the last estimates on the incidence of induced abortion in our country, we know that every 20 minutes a woman has to deal with the risks imposed on her health and life by the black market in order to obtain the means that will allow her to interrupt a pregnancy that she, and her partner, if he is around, have decided not to carry to term.

The political system, however, keeps delaying a serious approach to this problem. In spite of the “pro-life” discourses, the votes against it, the veto threats and the veto on a bill that intended to provide a comprehensive approach to the issue, it remains a reality that violates rights, causes suffering, distress and threatens the freedom of women who decide to exercise their right to not be a mother when they are not prepared or when they can’t support and take care of another child at that time. The differences in duration between the political process and the personal and social processes have not only made the decriminalization of abortion an inescapable issue in the human rights agenda of the country, the continent and the world, but also an indicator of the quality of democracy in terms of a system that peacefully coexists in a diverse society and generates equal opportunities to guarantee the conditions for the full exercise of rights to its population, without discrimination of any kind.

Amid this context of elections that defines the political reality of our country today; the legalization of abortion becomes an even more pressing issue for the citizens who have the huge responsibility of electing the people responsible for the fate of the country and its people for the next five years. Let’s remind them that the vast majority of citizens think that abortion should not be illegal –and thus– clandestine. Let’s inform them that for the vast majority of citizens, this should be an important issue in the election campaign. Let’s let them know that, regardless of that, more than 60% of voters don’t know where political parties and/or candidates stand on the issue.

The full citizenship of women can no longer depend on the religious, political or any other opinion of the ruling class or of the groups of power that influence those who rule. Rights are inherent in women because of their human condition, a fact that leaves no room for discussion in the XXI century, even if some people think otherwise. Women, as fully capable beings, no longer need to be under tutelage, but rather require equality in the conditions necessary to develop their potentialities and fully participate in the construction of the personal and collective fates of society.

It is not possible anymore to evade the public debate through clear and real positions and solutions from candidates and political parties. Preventing changes that would guarantee people’s right to decide freely on their sexual and reproductive lives according to multiple beliefs, sets of values, desires and options is increasingly hard.

The reality of the practice of abortion hasn’t changed, and much less ceased to exist, because there hasn’t been a serious action intervening for a change. Therefore, even though the political system would be “relieved” if the problem went away by magic or “divine grace”, the “miracle” isn’t going to happen. An underground abortion keeps taking place every 20 minutes in the country. The citizens who are to elect their political system next October want to know what solutions are offered for this reality.