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 In a new report, the rights group looked at sexual and reproductive
healthcare in eight countries - El Salvador, the Dominican Republic,
Paraguay, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay.
"Tragically, for women across Latin America, receiving life-saving
medical treatment depends on the good will of a health professional
or the depth of her pockets," Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director
at Amnesty, said in a statement.
"This outrageous and utterly illegal lottery-style approach to
health care is putting thousands of lives at risk," she said.
Latin America has some of the world's strictest abortion laws, with
seven countries imposing total bans on the procedure under any
circumstances.
In most countries in the region, abortion is only allowed in cases
of rape, incest or if the life of the mother is in danger.
The influential Catholic Church, along with evangelical churches,
which say life begins at the moment of conception, are a driving
force behind the region's strict abortion laws.
Another reason is the pervasive cultural stereotypes that promote
the role of women "first and foremost as mothers," the report said.
It cited the case of a pregnant 10-year-old girl in Paraguay who was
denied an abortion in 2015 after she had been allegedly raped by her
stepfather.
In the Dominican Republic, 16-year-old Rosaura Hernandez, died of
leukemia in 2012 after doctors delayed her treatment because she was
pregnant, the report said. Hernandez wanted an abortion, allowing
her to undergo cancer treatment, but doctors refused as abortion is
banned in the Caribbean nation.
In the few countries where abortion is legal, such as Uruguay, women
seeking abortions still face obstacles as health workers use their
right to declare themselves as conscientious objectors and refuse to
perform the procedure, Amnesty said.
Such attitudes can force women to undergo dangerous backstreet
abortions, which were the cause of at least one in 10 maternal
deaths in Latin America in 2014, the report said.
Around 760,000 women each year in Latin America are treated in
hospital for complications linked to unsafe abortions.
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ZIKA VIRUS
The spread of the Zika virus, linked to birth defects among children
in Brazil, has revived the debate about easing abortion laws in
Latin America and the need to improve access to contraception,
including emergency contraception.
One in three women of reproductive age in Latin America who would
like to use contraceptives do not have access to them, according to
the United Nations Population Fund.
So far four countries in the region - Colombia, El Salvador, Ecuador
and Jamaica - have recommended women delay getting pregnant due to
the Zika virus.
"This recommendation is not just absurd, it is insulting in a region
where more than half of pregnancies are unwanted or unplanned, where
there are extremely high rates of sexual violence, where the demand
for contraception far outstrips availability," Amnesty's report
said.
(Reporting by Anastasia Moloney, editing by Ros Russell.; Please
credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson
Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking,
corruption and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
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