Coercion Better than Catholicism According to Peruvian Women’s Groups

By C-FAM Staff | 2003

     (NEW YORK – C-FAM) Abortion rights advocates and radical feminist organizations are engaging in a campaign to discredit the health policies of the government of Peru, which they claim are too beholden to Catholic dogma. Some of these same groups have even voiced qualified support for the former regime of President Alberto Fujimori, which a Peruvian congressional report now claims forced more than 200,000 Peruvians to undergo sterilizations as part of a "compulsive family planning program."

     According to a July 2nd Associated Press article, "since Fujimori was ousted in a corruption scandal and President Alejandro Toledo gained power in a democratic election, women's groups have wound up as strange political bedfellows to the disgraced former regime by defending its family-planning strategy." The article then quotes Susana Chavez, a representative of the Peruvian women's group Manuela Ramos, who says, "We do not condone forced sterilizations, but no one can deny that Fujimori's program was excellent in terms of access and information."

     Last year, the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, a US-based group attempting to legalize abortion throughout Latin America, charged that the current governments' investigation of the coercion is a plot designed to discredit all sterilization procedures. In a press release, CRLP declared, "Peru's Minister of Health issued an apology on Wednesday for the forced sterilization of indigenous women during the presidency of Alberto Fujimori..CRLP is concerned that Wednesday's apology is part of a right-wing strategy to limit family planning options in Peru. High-ranking officials in the current government are known to be tied to ultra-conservative Catholic Church groups."

     On July 14th, the International Planned Parenthood Federation said that "The government of Peru has put forward a conservative Catholic-oriented stance on reproductive health..Thus, women – especially the poor – are denied access to information on artificial birth control and are encouraged to believe age-old Catholic teachings that babies are gifts from God to be protected even before birth."

     Critics seems especially incensed that the government will not provide free emergency contraceptive pills, which often cause early abortions. Nor are they pleased that a larger portion of Peru's health care budget is now dedicated to maternal health and obstetric care, rather than family planning programs designed to limit pregnancies. According to the Associated Press, the "Health Ministry has focused on reducing Peru's maternal mortality rate, the third highest in Latin America. Among improvements are better-trained staffs, increased prenatal visits, improved birthing programs, and free health care for women and children..The efforts have paid off. The number of women who die during childbirth has dropped from 163 per 100,000 pregnancies when the government took office to 152 today."

     One critic said that such polices showed that the Health Minister sought to "impose his beliefs on everyone."

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