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July 7, 2016

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Battling Zika means expanding reproductive rights

The Zika virus presents a rare global opportunity to effect a meaningful improvement in women’s power to control their reproductive capacity.

Zika, a word we had never heard before, became part of our vocabulary early this year. Transmitted by a mosquito, the virus causes a birth defect — microcephaly — and has been linked to Guillain-Barré syndrome, and most likely some other neurological problems.

Its arrival brought into play words many people usually try to avoid: abortion, contraception, and sex education. But when a crisis such as this brings to light the centrality of the reproductive function in human society, no one can ignore the much-needed debates.

A similar situation occurred in the 1960s when rubella became a public health scare in the United States. Abortion and even contraceptives were taboo if not illegal in some states then. It is important people understand that upholding women’s reproductive rights is essential to respond to the Zika emergency, but also that those rights are essential to women and, by extension, to society as a whole. But it is only in these epidemics when people who oppose reproductive rights in the abstract find a particular angle where they are comfortable with their legalization.

The good news is that many international organizations support reform. For example, the World Health Organization calls for granting women access to a comprehensive range of contraceptive options, and non-directive counseling about their options, so that they can make fully informed choices. And for those women who decide to carry the pregnancy to term, it calls for appropriate care and support for them and their newborn children.

Reforms are desperately needed and a case in point is Latin America, where 56 percent of pregnancies are unplanned.

This speaks to non-existent or poor-quality information about reproductive choices, unequal access to contraceptives, high rates of sexual violence with no adequate health response to survivors, cultural barriers to negotiate the use of contraceptives with male partners and laws that criminally condemn abortion.

The reproductive rights gap also runs along socioeconomic lines. As it has always been the case, women with resources are granted access to reproductive services with full respect for their confidentiality, regardless of whether those services are legal. On the other hand, women living in the most vulnerable circumstances — for example, those who don’t have access to running water and are thus more exposed to the virus — are the ones who cannot even count on enjoying rights legally recognized.

Critical moment

At this critical moment, states should take the opportunity to ensure all women their rights and access to the services they need to control their reproductive capacity, from sex education, to access to contraceptives, to abortion services, to safe motherhood.

Any response to Zika should always take a women’s rights approach and incorporate an understanding of how gender interacts with other forms of discrimination, such as those based on race, class, migration status, and disability.

Unfortunately, most don’t seem to be seizing the opportunity. Women who have decided to carry the pregnancy to term are dealing with the lack of services to provide their babies with the special care they need, and those who want to interrupt the pregnancy face obstacles, stigma and the threat of prosecution.

Women in vulnerable communities, those with the key to keeping the situation under control, could not be more fearful, uninformed, and alone. Something must be done and the time to act is now.

Mónica Roa is the former Vice President Strategy & External Relations at Women’s Link Worldwide. She is a lawyer and advocate for sexual and reproductive rights of women, and is recognized for her work on the decriminalization of abortion in Latin America. Native of Colombia, she holds a law degree from Universidad de los Andes in Bogota, and a Master in Laws as a Global Public Service Scholar from NYU. She is an expert on social justice, and using the law, strategic communications and political advocacy to create change. Shanghai Daily condensed the article.




 

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