The Fight for Medical Privacy in Latin America and Its Implications for Abortion Rights

rePROs Fight Back

The Green Wave movement has swept through Latin America and has increased the liberalization of abortion law. Still, criminalization, and medical privacy and medical secrecy concerns can impact someone’s access to care or have patients and professionals facing prison sentences. Gloria Orrego-Hoyos, fellow with the Health and Human Rights initiative at Georgetown Law’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, sits down to talk with us about the status of criminalization, medical privacy and medical secrecy when it comes to abortion across Latin America.

Some Latin American regions criminalize abortion to the extreme. In El Salvador, abortion carries a charge of “aggravated homicide” and can punished by up to 30 years in prison, while in Nicaragua, those who access an abortion face a sentence of up to two years in prison, with medical professionals facing sentences of up to six years in prison for administering care. Some medical professionals feel pressure to, and do end up, reporting abortions to the police. Many doctors are also afraid to provide care until the most dangerous point, due to the shadow of the criminal system.

Links

Gloria Orrego-Hoyos on Twitter

Plan C
Abortionfinder.org
Ineedana.com
Repro Legal Helpline
Repro Legal Defense Fund
Digital Defense Fund

Take Action

Follow Gloria on Twitter to stay up-to-date on her incredible work. You can also follow the O’Neill Institute here.

If you ever find yourself on the other end of criminalization for accessing abortion care, you can contact the Repro Legal Helpline and the If/When/How’s Repro Legal Defense Fund.

Try to have conversations in your homes, in your places of work, and with your friends about abortion and access to basic healthcare in an effort to break stigma.

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