Citizens demand access to emergency contraception. (Chile).

Organizations of Chilean civil society have developed a series of strategies to defend widespread and unrestricted access to emergency contraception, which has been available in local pharmacies since September 2001. One of the leaders on this issue, the Foro Red de Salud y Derechos Sexuales y Reproductivos (Network Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights) has planned a number of activities to promote this method. Special priority has been placed on providing young people with clear information on how and when emergency contraception should be used. Above all, the Foro's campaign emphasizes the issue of sexual and reproductive rights and autonomous decision-making.

As part of a project supported by the UNFPA, the Foro organized a public opinion poll at local subway stations in April 2002. The young people who took part in this activity also handed out informational flyers prepared by the Foro. The survey/information campaign was promoted by the University of Chile radio station and covered by several local newspapers. On May 31, another activity which targeted the general public promoted access to emergency contraception as a civil right. This massive street campaign also inspired a great deal of interest on an issue that has provoked a great deal of controversy based primarily on misinformation.

Upcoming events include a consciousness-raising seminar on EC and sexual and reproductive rights for journalists and other communications professionals. Other public activities will be held throughout the rest of 2002, including more opinion polls in the streets, informational campaigns and mural-sized posters with slogans promoting the right to EC. A number of activities have been planned on the campuses of local universities and colleges in collaboration with student organizations.

The process of promoting access to EC is especially important given the current context: self-styled "pro-life" groups have begun a new communications campaign against the sale of emergency contraception. At the same time, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church has voiced its concern for Chileans' "reluctance" to have children, based on a recent census which reveals that the current fertility rate is 2.2 children per woman, nearly half the rate of the 1950s. The Church blames this phenomenon on the "anti-natalist" policies of recent decades, rather than understanding decreased family size as the reflection of women 's free and informed choice to have fewer children and of women s new perception of themselves as individuals independent of their reproductive role.