Nicaragua: Votes for Lives

Did you know Nicaragua has a total ban on induced abortion? As in, total. Not if you've been raped, not if the foetus is completely non-viable, not in case of ectopic pregnancy. Not if, like me, you have a fear of pregnancy (actually, I'll go look up the word for that in a minute) and would rather kill yourself than have to have something growing inside you screwing with your insides for 9 months. Not if you have cancer and need immediate chemotherapy. And so on.

For the record, I'm completely pro-choice. I don't think a woman should have to justify her termination at all, let alone be dying of pregnancy before she gets one.

That said, even even people I know who are generally anti-choice almost always make exceptions in case of risk to the life of the mother, or a foetus which cannot live outside the womb.

A few other countries have total bans too - the Dominican Republic passed one just last month. The only reason I focus on Nicaragua is that it was the first one I knew of. Also, the main reason the ban exists there is apparently a deal with Catholic church made to get extra votes and return an administration which had been on its way out to power.

What value system is this, that values even a two or three week embryo over the life of a woman? Any woman - she may already have children, or other dependents; she probably has a family and/or a partner who love her; she may well bow to the God of the celibate priests as well as they do. That regardless of these factors is a whole live real human being whose life is threatened and could be saved?

What politics picks votes over the lives of half the population? Over their rights, their choices, their self-determination?

The UN recently called the Nicaraguan ban torture. It is. State-sanctioned, humanity-violating torture.

It makes me want to cry.