Out of options: abortion law in Latin America--woefully outdated--needs to change. Women's lives depend on it.

In Colombia, a woman who has an abortion risks jail even if she has been raped or if the pregnancy threatens her life. Abortion for any reason is also a criminal offense in Chile and El Salvador.

Abortion rights are a growing political and health issue in Latin America, a region with some of the most restrictive laws and high incidences of illegal abortions. Colombian women can be imprisoned for up to four and a half years. The maximum penalty in Argentina is five years; there, illegal abortion is the leading cause of maternal death. Only two countries in the region are pro-choice--Cuba and Puerto Rico.

These unjust laws have lead to staggering statistics: As many as 4 million Latin American women have unsafe abortions annually--a quarter of them in Brazil alone. International Planned Parenthood Federation reports that 5,000 women die each year and 800,000 are hospitalized from clandestine abortions. In Chile 50 out of every 1,000 women of reproductive age has had an abortion--the highest rate in the region. Brazilian health workers say desperate women sometimes drink rat poison or insert objects into their uterus to end an unwanted pregnancy.

Thankfully, there are brave people like Monica del Pilar Boa. In April, Roa filed a historic lawsuit to amend Colombia's penal code. The 29-year-old Bogota attorney, who holds a master's degree in global public-service law from New York University, is not calling for U.S.-style abortion laws. She merely wants the constitutional court to legalize abortion in case of rape, when a woman's life or health is in danger or when the fetus is suffering from severe abnormality. She hopes a favorable ruling will reduce the estimated 450,000 annual abortions in Colombia, from which nearly a third of women suffer complications.

Not surprisingly, conservative politicians and Catholic Church officials see Roa as the devil incarnate. Critics have asked the government to revoke her citizenship. She moved from her home office after thieves stole computers and files pertaining to the case. She has changed her phone numbers after receiving death threats. Roa has sought to hire a bodyguard.

The lawsuit is based on international treaties, which Roa argues correctly should trump domestic law. Colombia has signed the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the International Covenant on Political and Civil Bights, and the American Convention for Human Rights, all treaties that guarantee women the right to life, health and equality. "There is a double standard when it comes to international human rights treaties," Roa told me in a telephone interview from Bogota. "Women's rights are just on paper."

If Roa wins her lawsuit, a favorable ruling could set an important legal precedent. A decision is expected this month. "It's opened up a discussion on a taboo subject like nothing else," says Barbara Becket, a spokeswoman for Women's Link Worldwide, a nongovernmental organization in New York. 'A lot of countries around Latin America and the world are watching closely."

Most Latin American countries do permit legal abortion in case of rape or to save a woman's life. But that's not the same as access. Safe abortions have long been available in large cities for those who can afford it. When I lived in Rio de Janeiro, several rich women told me that they had had abortions in upscale private clinics. To avoid prosecution, their doctors simply registered the operations as plastic surgery. In Mexico, middle-class women along the border go to clinics in California and other U.S. border states.

New laws should be supplemented with better access to contraceptives, information on family planning, and education to help change a sexist culture. A huge change in attitude would help, too. Endemic machismo accounts for much backward thinking in Latin America, and family planning is no exception. Latin American women complain that their husbands and boyfriends prevent them from using contraception and that male doctors don't take them seriously. In Argentina, for example, where a half million women have abortions each year, some hospitals still require women to obtain their husbands consent before submitting to sterilization surgery, or be older than 35 and have at least three children before they will perform the operation.

Latin American women should have access to safe and legal abortion, whether they can pay for it or not. It's a matter of equality, health, and human rights.

COMMENTS? WRITE: [e-mail]