Monday, November 29, 2010
Media Monday! "Abortion Democracy," the documentary
A few weeks ago I met a German woman named Sarah Diehl, who's in the US doing a screening tour for her documentary, "Abortion Democracy: Poland / South Africa." I saw a short preview of the film and have been looking forward to seeing it ever since.
Poland is one of the few countries in Europe that has criminalized abortion in almost all cases -- and this isn't an ancient law, either, but one passed in 1994. I remember a few years ago reading about a Polish woman who sued the government in the European Court of Human Rights after being denied an abortion that would have saved her deteriorating eyesight. Alicja Tysiac is functionally blind as a result of this denial; the court found that the Polish law did not even uphold the narrow exceptions it claimed to make for cases where a woman's health was endangered by pregnancy, the government had failed by the standards of its own law and Tysiac's human rights had been violated. The court awarded her compensation, but of course that won't restore her sight. The story both outraged and terrified me: abortion policies aren't an abstraction limited to proving ideological points -- they are terribly, viscerally real for the women whose decision-making they vitiate.
South Africa, on the other hand, is one of the few countries in Africa that has legalized elective abortion. The law was changed in 1996 to allow abortion "on demand" in the first trimester and abortion on certain legal, medical or socioeconomic grounds in weeks 13-20. (Quick fact: "on demand" means that women are not required to stand before a judge, panel of doctors, or other jury who will approve or reject their 'case' for an abortion.) Yet legally-qualifying abortions are still quite difficult to obtain for many South African women, especially in the second trimester. In fact, "Abortion Democracy" suggests that it may be "easier to obtain an illegal abortion in Poland than it is to obtain a legal abortion in South Africa." In this sense, national policies are not the only thing that determines the nature of on-the-ground access, not by a long shot.
I'll be watching the movie tonight, so I'll be back with an update on how it was. In the meantime, I hope this trailer gets you as intrigued as I am.
2 comments:
This is not a debate forum -- there are hundreds of other sites for that. This is a safe space for abortion care providers and one that respects the full spectrum of reproductive choices; comments that are not in that spirit will either wind up in the spam filter or languish in the moderation queue.
When I was in Johannesburg there was a sign on every city trash can promoting "SAFE ABORTION BY QUALIFIED PROVIDERS". I later learned that you might not want to visit one of the garbage doctors, but I was shocked that they advertised so openly. No shame, no stigma, and no defacement of the ads. How about that?!
ReplyDeleteI actually get this feeling that antis don't go public with their crazy or violent behavior until they feel like they're no longer securely in the majority... I mean, this is purely anecdotal (though it'd be interesting to analyze -- any poli sci nerds??) but it seems like countries with more recent liberalizations of their abortion law have antis still fighting in the legal venues, i.e. reversing the law or changing the constitution, and perhaps trying to avoid looking like nutcases to the public while they attempt this... Thinking of Mexico City as one example, where there are protesters who offer to "pray for" patients and CPCs that occasionally manage to trick them, but in general are still a lot less shouty and gorey-imagey and pushy-shovey than those in the US. Would love thoughts on that, though.
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