Another Female Politician on Abortion

Ruth Zavaleta's recent column on the subject was much more honest and direct than the laughable effort from Beatriz Paredes a few weeks ago. Highlights:

Let's leave behind one premise: no woman wishes and is happy about submitting her body and conscience to an unfavorable action. On the one hand, a clandestine abortion implies risks of health effects, including fatal ones; on the other, the social and spiritual culture that we have seems to turn the woman into the victimizer. Any woman who goes to submit herself to an intervention to terminate a pregnancy is exercising her freedom and faces the intolerance of the world around her. But that woman who does wish to submit herself or has done so because she has been the victim of a rape will should only receive the understanding, the affection, and the sensitivity of the society, but all the attention that must be provided by a state that watches over the respect for and belief in the rules and norms of a democratic society.

We mustn't be mistaken, the conscience of the state, its understanding, is related to the established laws and with the public health of its citizens and the legalization of the interruption of a pregnancy shouldn't change the setting of the discussion: it's an issue of public health that the state must deal with, whether it wants to or not, because, as with cancer and diabetes, it's a cause of deterioration of the health of the population. It's an obligation for the state to deal with public health, leaving other institutions (churches) to deal with the spiritual health --their version of it-- of their parishioners.

[Break]

The state and its institutions are must be concerned about all harm that its citizens suffer or that are generated by any act of government. As evidenced, this also implies acts of admission. The freedom of their citizens is indispensable for the state to guarantee their legitimacy. A double standard, a double vision to evaluate the role of the woman and her rights, conquered over the course of the centuries, only further increases the blows of poverty and social inequality in our country.

That's certainly not the last word on the issue, and it seems that for the time being, at least, Zavaleta's voice will remain among the political minority, but it's nonetheless spiriting to hear a politician adopt the pro-choice point of view with some clarity and honesty.