{"id":226327,"date":"2016-02-19T22:24:33","date_gmt":"2016-02-19T22:24:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/zika-is-a-reproductive-rights-issue\/"},"modified":"2016-02-19T22:24:33","modified_gmt":"2016-02-19T22:24:33","slug":"zika-is-a-reproductive-rights-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/zika-is-a-reproductive-rights-issue\/","title":{"rendered":"Zika is a Reproductive Rights Issue"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"zika-virus-reproductive-rights-abortion-pregnancy-birth-defect-latin-america-guatemala\"<\/p>\n

(Photo: Conred Guatemala \/ Flickr)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The mosquito-borne Zika virus, which is becoming a burgeoning public health issue in 26 countries in the Latin American region, has been making international headlines for weeks. The symptoms of Zika are mild: They include joint pain, fever, rash, and red eyes, and should only last a few days \u2014 unless you\u2019re pregnant.<\/p>\n

For pregnant women, there\u2019s a worrisome correlation between the virus and a serious birth defect called microcephaly, which is marked by an abnormally small head and an underdeveloped brain. Fetuses diagnosed with this condition are often miscarried or die shortly after birth. Those that survive suffer from developmental and health problems.<\/p>\n

To combat this problem, the governments of some Zika-infected countries \u2014 including Colombia, Ecuador, and Jamaica (where the disease hasn\u2019t even been confirmed yet) \u2014 are now asking women to delay their pregnancies<\/a>. In El Salvador, officials are counseling women to hold off on conceiving for up to two years.<\/p>\n

There is, however, a glaring problem with this directive: The majority of these mostly Catholic countries have harsh laws regarding reproductive rights. Though Pope Francis recently declared that contraception might be acceptable for Catholic women in Zika-infected countries, they still don\u2019t have access to abortion. The procedure is outright illegal in Haiti, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. In other countries, like Guatemala and Venezuela, abortion is only permitted to save a woman\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

In Brazil, the hardest hit country<\/a>, abortion is restricted to cases of medical necessity. Though the practice is virtually illegal, between 1 and 4 million Brazilian women<\/a> have abortions<\/a> each year. Women of means can usually access a safe and clean clinic to get the procedure. Poor women, however, are more likely to subject themselves to dangerous methods to end their pregnancies.<\/p>\n

The Zika virus is bringing this inequality to the fore.<\/p>\n

The Brazilian Ministry of Health has recorded 3,670 suspected cases of the associated birth defect<\/a> since the beginning of 2015, and 404 of those have been confirmed. So far, 17 microcephaly cases have been linked to Zika. Most of those have been reported in the Zika epicenter of northeastern Brazil \u2014 the most impoverished region in the country. Shoddy sanitation systems and a lack of running water make the area a breeding ground for mosquitos.<\/p>\n

While governments scramble to contain the virus, the Obama administration is asking Congress for $1.8 billion in emergency funding, including $335 million for the U.S. Agency for International Development to respond to Zika abroad. These funds would be used to support pregnant women\u2019s health by helping them access things like mosquito repellant.<\/p>\n

There is no mention, however, of helping them access safe abortions.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because even if Zika-infected countries with draconian abortion laws decided to lift their bans, thanks to a legal restriction known as the Helms amendment, the United States would still face hurdles<\/a> helping women in Latin America make their own reproductive choices.<\/p>\n

The Helms amendment, which was added to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1973 after the Roe v. Wade<\/em> decision the previous year, prohibits the use of foreign aid to pay for \u201cabortion as a method of family planning\u201d or to provide counseling that could be construed as \u201cmotivation or coercion of a person to practice abortion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reproductive rights advocates have long lamented that the amendment is being misinterpreted. When put into practice, they say, it essentially prohibits paying for safe and accessible abortions of any variety \u2014 including those of medical necessity.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if [these countries] change their laws, because of the Helms amendment, we wouldn\u2019t even be able to help them,\u201d explains Brian Dixon of the Population Connection Action Fund \u2014 the political arm of an international family planning organization. \u201cI would never claim that the Helms amendment is the primary barrier,\u201d Dixon clarifies. But if the United States wants to help end the Zika outbreak, it should consider looking at its own policies that harm women around the globe.<\/p>\n

Population Connection has been advocating for President Barack Obama to do something about the Helms amendment before he leaves office, as well as pushing the 2016 presidential candidates to state their position on the amendment.<\/p>\n

Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have now pledged to \u201creinterpret\u201d the Helms amendment<\/a>. Clinton said she\u2019d make sure the amendment would make exceptions for instances of rape or incest, while Sanders promised to repeal the policy altogether.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the Pan American Health Organization are still learning about the link between birth defects and the Zika virus. But for now, even as the disease continues to spread, officials can only advise pregnant women to avoid mosquito bites and to avoid traveling to Zika-infected countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe burden of dealing with it,\u201d says Dixon, \u201chas fallen on women.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This piece was reprinted from Foreign Policy In Focus<\/a> by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Photo: Conred Guatemala \/ Flickr) The mosquito-borne Zika virus, which is becoming a burgeoning public health issue in 26 countries in the Latin American region, has been making international headlines for weeks. The symptoms of Zika are mild: They include joint pain, fever, rash, and red eyes, and should only last a few days \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":226328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-226327","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}