Women Behind Bars : Chile's Abortion Laws

by Elliott Light

The Chilean abortion law prohibits all abortions and is one of the most restrictive in the world. Chilean women are being prosecuted for obtaining or inducing their own abortions and are, in some cases, being sent to prison. This analysis documents a pattern of human rights abuses against these women.

The New York-based Center for Reproductive Law and Policy and the Open Forum on Reproductive Health and Rights in Santiago (Foro Abierto) assert that the restrictive abortion law violates women's reproductive rights, including their right to health, their right to liberty and security, as well as potentially their right to life.

In addition to the rights violated by the prohibition itself, the methods by which women are reported to the police and the criminal process that women, the abortion providers and their "accomplices" undergo, violate numerous other human rights.

This book makes recommendations to the Chilean government to undertake a series of legal and policy changes, such as ensuring improved access to reproductive health services and instituting an exception for therapeutic abortion.

This book lays bare incontrovertible facts, facts that have remained hidden and silent under the dust of court records and the blanket of prevailing hypocrisy. — Dr. María Isabel Matamala Vivaldi, Deputy Coordinator, Latin American and Caribbean Women's Health Network

98 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published December 1, 1998