Right-Wing Extremists Threaten Women's Rights All Over the World

By Gillian Kane, AlterNet. Posted June 17, 2009.

In the weeks following the assassination of Wichita abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, it was perhaps too much to hope that antiabortion organizations and activists would reflect on, and even temper, their movement’s rhetoric. Instead, the halfhearted denunciations of violence issued by groups like the National Right to Life Committee and Operation Rescue were all too quickly followed by a return to offensive characterizations not only of abortion, but of abortion providers.  

While the most harmful expressions of antiabortion violence are playing out here in the United States, the vigorous export of the rhetoric, tactics and ideology of the movement is creating a similar hostile environment for abortion providers and for women seeking abortions in other countries. Legal attacks and harassment against clinics, women and providers in countries where women risk their lives to end a pregnancy are increasing, largely tolerated by governments who are reluctant to confront powerful religious leaders.  

In many ways the U.S. antiabortion movement is succeeding in recreating the intimidating American model abroad. Take, for example, the 2007 police raid on a family planning clinic in Brazil, which was eerily reminiscent of the raids on Dr. Tiller’s clinic in Wichita. In both cases, the private medical records of thousands of women were confiscated and searched for evidence of illegal abortions. Prosecutors felt that the possibility that any of them might have had an illegal abortion far outweighed their right to keep their medical records private.  

Similar attitudes can be seen at the national level where conservative antiabortion legislators recently submitted a proposal to the Brazilian Congress seeking to define abortion as a “heinous crime.” This came just months after their caucus, the Parliamentary Front in Defense of Life, pushed for the approval of a congressional committee dedicated to investigating illegal abortions and the black market sale of abortive drugs “in order to implement the law to the fullest extent.”  If found guilty, women who undergo illegal abortions could receive one-to-three years imprisonment, and physicians up to 20 years.   

Even where abortion is legal, activists are applying the same tactics of intimidation seen here in United States. Last year the Mexico City legislature approved a progressive reproductive health bill allowing abortion for up to twelve weeks. A legal appeal (supported by the country’s Catholic hierarchy) quickly followed but was denied by the Mexican Supreme Court. Antiabortion activists sprung into full attack mode, protesting clinics wielding massive posters of bloodied, mangled full-term babies who they claimed were the victims of abortion.  They continue to film, intimidate and harass women entering clinics for legal services, begging them not to get an abortion.   

See more stories tagged with: abortion, reproductive rights, india, mexico, brazil, tiller, contraceptions

Gillian Kane is senior advisor for Ipas, an international reproductive health organization that works to end deaths and injuries from unsafe abortion."

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