Abortion in Paraguay

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Abortion in Paraguay is illegal except in case of the threat to the life of the woman. [1] Anyone who performs an abortion can be sentenced to 15 to 30 months in prison. If the abortion is done without the consent of the woman, the punishment is increased to 2 to 5 years. If the death of the woman occurred as a result of the abortion, the person who did the procedure can be sentenced to 4 to 6 years in prison, and 5 to 10 years in cases in which she did not consent. [1] In Paraguay, 23 out of 100 deaths of young women are the result of illegal abortions. [2] Concerning this death rate, Paraguay has one of the highest in the region. [2]

In April 2015, a story about a 10-year-old Paraguayan girl who was 22 weeks pregnant as a result of having allegedly been raped and impregnated by her stepfather came to light. [3] The pregnancy had been discovered that same month after the girl's mother brought her to a local hospital for abdominal pain, which was found to have been related to the pregnancy. Calls from her mother as well as outraged members of the public throughout the world for permission to allow the girl to undergo an abortion procedure were ultimately denied. The girl gave birth to the child via a caesarean section in a Red Cross hospital in Paraguay's capital city of Asunción later that year. [3] The girl's stepfather has since been prosecuted for the rape and her mother had also been charged with negligence for her alleged role in the circumstances surrounding the rape and pregnancy of her daughter. The high-profile nature of this case has led opposition leftist parties to push for less restrictive abortion laws in Paraguay, such as in cases of child pregnancies and in cases of sexual assault. [3] The United Nations has found that the maternal death rate is four times higher for girls under the age of 16 in Latin America. [3] The 10-year-old girl reportedly survived the birth, and her mother and grandmother both requested legal custody of the newborn child. [3]

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<i>Attorney General v X</i> Irish court case permitting abortion in exceptional circumstances

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mamie Cadden</span>

Mary Anne "Mamie" Cadden was an American-born Irish midwife, backstreet abortionist, and convicted murderer. She was born 27 October 1891 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Irish parents Patrick and Mary Cadden. In 1895, Cadden and her family returned to Lahardane in County Mayo, Ireland, where she completed years of schooling. Once she obtained her spot on the list of licensed midwives in Dublin, she opened a series of maternity nursing homes to aid women with health issues and to perform illegal abortions. After a series of criminal convictions, Cadden lost her status as a licensed midwife. In 1944, Cadden was charged and convicted for the murder of 33-year-old Helen O'Reilly. She was sentenced to life in prison, and after a year at Mountjoy prison, she was declared insane and moved to the criminal lunatic asylum Dundrum, where she died of a heart attack on 20 April 1959. Although many people committed backstreet abortions during the period of Cadden's life, Cadden was the only person in Ireland to be sentenced to the death penalty for a maternal death occurring as a result of an abortion. As the most notorious Irish abortionist of her era, the term 'Nurse Cadden' was synonymous with evil in the Irish public's mind.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abortion in Argentina</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abortion in Colombia</span>

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<i>Rex v Bourne</i> 1938 British court case on abortion

Rex v Bourne, The King v Aleck Bourne, or the Bourne Judgment, was a British landmark court case in 1938 relating to an abortion performed by obstetric surgeon Aleck Bourne on a 14-year-old girl who had become pregnant as a result of being raped. The judge directed the jury towards the concept that situations arise where abortion might protect the health of the mother. Bourne was found not guilty of performing the procedure unlawfully and the judgment set the precedence for several subsequent abortion cases and the Abortion Act 1967 (UK).

References

  1. 1 2 "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 20 June 2018. Retrieved 28 June 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. 1 2 "Science Blog -- ABORTION-RELATED DEATHS IN PARAGUAY AMONG ISSUES EXAMINED BY COMMITTEE ON ELIMINATION OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN". Archived from the original on 8 April 2005. Retrieved 28 December 2008.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Izadi, Elahe (14 October 2015). "Denied an abortion, 11-year-old rape victim in Paraguay gives birth". Washington Post. ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved 5 November 2021.