The girl had fallen pregnant after being raped by her grandmother’s boyfriend. A practitioner who assisted in the procedure told the Guardian there were thousands of such cases in Argentina. Last week, the Guardian reported the story of Lucía – not her real name – who was raped by her grandmother’s 65-year-old partner. She was denied an abortion, despite the law allowing terminations in cases of rape or when the woman’s life is at risk. Despite Lucía qualifying on both accounts, local authorities in the northern province of Tucumán, where she lives, delayed a decision until 23 weeks into her pregnancy. By that time Lucía was not physically able to undergo a normal, vaginal abortion. Instead she had to undergo what is called a hysterotomy abortion, in which the foetus is removed via a small incision in the abdomen, similar to a caesarean section. Rescued by hospital staff, the foetus survived the procedure but is not expected to live.
Cecilia Ousset, who assisted her husband, Jorge Gijena, in carrying out the procedure, said she was “horrified” by the outcome of the case. “At no moment was it our intention to force the girl to give [a] live birth,” said Ousset in a phone interview punctuated with tears. Ousset and her husband are pro-choice private practitioners, called in by the government when the public hospital staff refused to carry out the court-ordered procedure. Ousset feels they were tricked by a deliberate and ultimately successful ploy by provincial officials to delay the procedure long enough to force the delivery of a live newborn.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Thank you for choosing to make a difference through your donation. We appreciate your support.
This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies. Opt Out of CookiesCategories
All
Archives
April 2024
|