Abortion, through a Glass Darkly

Many South American countries have long had fairly liberal policies on abortion. Bolivia is a good example. Abortion has been available there for what is, by Western standards, a small fee, since the early seventies. This is true even though Bolivia has had, during this time, fairly conservative governmental leadership and an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic population.

With the collapse of the Monroe Doctrine, many of the poorer countries of South America are experiencing burgeoning populist movements, with the indigenous majorities, mired in a cycle of ignorance and poverty for centuries, seizing power through the ballot box, as US supported, right wing oligarchies, founder.

An interesting thing is happening as the poor, native population gains power. In Bolivia, for example, abortion rates have always been high, at least as high as in the US. The populist sentiment though, is to outlaw abortion. It has not been done yet but it looks like it's coming.

Why is this the case? The new, young, Indio President of Bolivia, has been condemned as a communist, in everything but name, by Condolezza's impotent stammerers. The Catholic Church is in virtual schism in Bolivia, over the fact that so many of the parish priests in the hinterlands are ordained locally and married. Rome exercises little real power over the people. While there is no feminist movement in Bolivia, women's traditional roles in society are strong.

It turns out that the sanitary, efficient abortion clinics in Bolivia were for the elite, Mestizo population. Indian women, in their homespun rebozos and bowler hats were not welcome. In any case, the $150 to $300 fee required by these clinics, is likely more than most of these women will ever see at one time. Indigenous women see these clinics as just another entitlement, lavished for generations, on the mestizo class and resent their presence. While their actual rates of abortion are as high or higher than those of mestizo women, Indians were and are, forced to pay what little they can afford, to back alley practitioners and suffer high rates of infection and hemorrhaging, often resulting in sterility or death. Whether abortion remains legal or not in Bolivia, this will not change for them.

This is the kind of moral victory that the pro life movement, who glory in the death and suffering of innocent women at the hands of back alley abortionists in filthy, third world privies, can expect. They enjoy this kind of situation, when women who have engaged in fornication get their fitting punishment. These hippocrites are truly an abomination against God and will burn in Hell.