For the decriminalization of abortion. (News and Meetings).

September 28

The crucial importance of the separation of Church and State was emphasized in this year's call for action for the September 28 Campaign for the Decriminalization of Abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean, coordinated from 2000 to 2002 by Brazil's Rede Nacional Feminista de Saude e Direitos Reproductivos (RedeSaude, National Feminist Network for Reproductive Health and Rights).

In recent years, the Catholic Church's interference in public policy - in alliance with sectors of the extreme right - has increased dramatically and has saturated issues of far-reaching importance for women and men with dogmatic and moralistic views, especially in the case of sexual and reproductive rights.

Because of the significance of this issue, we include below an abbreviated version of the initial call to action. Hundreds of women's groups and feminist organizations from 21 Latin American and Caribbean countries and various regional groups, including the Latin American and Caribbean Women's Health Network, participated in this campaign. During 2003-2005, the September 28 Campaign will be coordinated by the Centro dela Mujer Peruana "Flora Tristan" ("Flora Tristan" Peruvian Women's Center) and will be headed by Susana Chavez, the Coordinator of Flora Tristan's Program on Sexual Rights and Citizenship.

For Separation of Church and State: For the Right to A Free Choice

The Latin American and the Caribbean region is one of the most restrictive in the world when it comes to women's rights to voluntarily interrupt a pregnancy. In all countries where termination of pregnancy is illegal, clandestine abortions continue to be performed in extremely precarious conditions. These unsafe procedures imply not only a considerable health risk for the individual women, but a serious public health problem. At the same time, moral and religious arguments further complicate the issue.

It the government's duty to offer its people basic and necessary medical services. Within the domain of these services lies the right to a safe abortion, especially in those instances permitted bylaw. Furthermore, in the UN conferences at Cairo and Beijing, our countries made commitments to review their laws in order to promote the decriminalization of abortion. Nonetheless, today we are witnessing a dedicated crusade against these policies.

Religious values cannot and should not be permitted to override women's freedom to choose to have an abortion. However, in order for this right to be a real and possible option, it is crucial to respect the separation of Church and State.

We typically understand the separation of Church and State -- or secularism -- to be an essential element of democracy, in which laws and policies apply to all people regardless of their moral or religious beliefs. The secular ethical framework is essential for the existence of a diverse society based upon tolerance and respect. Separation of Church and State ensures that religious principles cannot control the practice of government or legislative decision-making. The secular State should guarantee all its citizens the right to freedom of thought and the right to make free and responsible decisions.

The colonization of Latin America and the Caribbean was marked by the influence of religion on those in positions of public power, and the power of the Catholic hierarchy was solidly established. Recent democratic legislative reforms attempt to erase the remnants of this influence, especially in regard to sexuality, reproduction and family structure because this religious influence aims primarily to reduce women's freedom to make decisions over their own lives.

Although 36 years ago the Second Vatican Council accepted the principle of the separation of Church and State in its Declaration of Religious Freedom," we are now witnessing the return of theocratic principles and their renewed influence on public policies, especially in regard to abortion.

Ignoring the Importance of Separation of Church and State Threatens Democracy

Over the past three decades, the women's movement has made major advances in the areas of civil, political and human rights. One of these gains was the legitimization of reproductive rights, crucial for the promotion of individual autonomy and human dignity. The right to voluntary termination of pregnancy falls within the domain of these reproductive rights.

International documents of the United Nations and the Organization of American States legitimized these rights, and in some countries, national legislative reforms have begun to affect changes in public policies on family planning, specialized care for women victims of sexual violence, sex education in the schools, humane care for women suffering complications from clandestine abortions, and safe abortion services in those cases permitted by law.

Unfortunately, these achievements are being threatened by the renewed effort to impose religious values on the function of the State and by growing alliances between high-ranking public officials and fundamentalist sectors.

This conservative resurgence was clearly evident in the election of George W. Bush in 2001. On his first day in office, the new president of the United States reinstated the "Global Gag Rule." More recently, Bush approved a significant cut in the resources allocated to the United Nations Population Fund (UNEPA), a decision that has effectively interrupted the progress of important projects offering reproductive health information and services, mainly in those countries that depend on financial assistance to provide these services.

At the same time, this reactionary atmosphere can also be seen in the most recent UN conferences and other international meetings, where issues of sexuality and reproductive rights continue to be challenged and threatened with serious setbacks, particularly with regard to abortion. Such was the case in the UN Special Session on HIV/AIDS (New York, 2001), the World Conference against Racism (Durban, 2001), and the UN Special Session on Children (New York, 2002), and most recently, in the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg, 2002). At the WSSD, the final document remained unfinished until the very last minute because of a paragraph on health services. Conservative sectors feared that its wording might pave the way for recognition of abortion as a right. Again, women witnessed the use of their bodies as bargaining chips in the power plays among world powers, this time in disputes on the issues of the environment and biodiversity.

The Consequences in Latin America and the Caribbean

Since 1997, institutional intervention by religious sectors has been on the rise in Latin America and the Caribbean, paralleled by the weakening of the development of democracy in our countries. Clamping down on abortion and the right to freedom of choice is one of the primary focuses of these interventions:

* Several countries already have declared an official date celebrating the Day of the Unborn Child, which creates a perfect venue for anti-abortion efforts. This day gives the opposition the chance to attack the Cairo and Beijing agreements, in which more than 180 countries recognized unsafe abortion as an issue of public health, recommended the decriminalization of abortion where punished by law, and urged public health services to offer safe abortions in the cases in which national laws allow for the termination of pregnancy.

The Day of the Unborn Child has been enacted in Argentina, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, and at least four more countries are considering taking a similar course of action.

* Two years ago, religious pressures persuaded the majority of Costa Rica's Supreme Court justices to modify the law in order to recognize the right to life from the point of conception. This same action was also attempted in other countries whose laws do not include this controversial wording.

* In Nicaragua, the recent reform of the Penal Code incorporated the defense of the unborn child, establishing penalties of up to five years of imprisonment for this offense.

* Argentina's Supreme Court prohibited the use of emergency contraception, which it ruled to be an abortifacient based on conservative and moralist arguments contrary to scientific research and documents produced by the World Health Organization. The Supreme Court also declared Buenos Aires' Sexual and Reproductive Health Law to be unconstitutional. More recently, local Catholic bishops proposed guidelines for public education in an attempt obtain state subsidies for religious schools.

Women's groups and organized civil society must be vigilant and question this backlash which allows those in positions of power to behave as if the Church and the State were a single institution.

* For more information about this year's September 28 campaign activities, contact the coordinators, email: [e-mail]; or visit the campaign website: www. campanha28set.org