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http://socialistaction.org/cuba-expands-womens-reproductive-rights/
CUBA EXPANDS WOMEN’S REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS
Photo: Jorge Luis Baños /
IPS
By ANN MONTAGUE – December
13, 2014
Abortion has been legal in
Cuba since the victory of the Cuban revolution in 1959 and was codified into
law as a women’s “sovereign right” in 1968.
Vilma Espin, a feminist and
revolutionary fighter, was made the head of the new Federation of Cuban Women
and later created the National Center For Sex Education, now headed by her
daughter Mariela Castro Espin. As a result of Espin’s role in the revolution
and heading an organization of over three million Cuban women, women’s
reproductive rights were always on the agenda. Not only was abortion legalized;
all women have access to free contraception.
Cuba is now launching a new
campaign to address the low birth rate, which is due to the choices Cuban women
have been making for decades.
Most women in Cuba today
only have only one child. Luis Ernesto Formoso, director of the Obstetrics and
Gynecology Hospital in Havana, explains it this way: “In health matters we
behave like the developed world, and now women only start to think about having
children once they’re established in their careers. For instance, my
grandmother had 16 children; my mother, four; and I have only one child.”
The assistant director of
the hospital’s nursing unit, Caridad Fuentes, points out that these changes are
in a country where, “we have a public health system that provides free medical
care for all women throughout pregnancy and childbirth. The number of teenage
pregnancies has also been cut thanks to the ‘arsenal of information’ that
teenagers receive and their use of safe birth-control methods. And our infant
mortality rate is lower than the United States.”
In most countries around the
world women are fighting for reproductive rights, which means the right to
abortion and access to birth control. In Cuba they are increasing services for
women who want to have children but have been unable due to infertility.Cuba’s
Council Of Ministers announced recently that they have increased fully paid
maternity and paternity leave to one year. There are also plans to expand
day-care facilities, as 53% of mothers with children four or younger work.
The big announcement was
that Cuba would be opening special centers for infertile couples in each of the
country’s 168 municipalities. The government says it treated 3000 couples for
infertility in 2010, and more than doubled that number in the following three
years. The country has also tripled the number of special reproductive
technology centers, to three, and there have been 500 births by artificial
insemination. They are also increasing the special maternity units where women
with high-risk pregnancies can stay full-time.
Dr. Bartolome Arce, chief of
Endocrinology and Assisted Reproduction Services, pointed out that the cost of
invitro fertilization in most other countries—for example, the United States—is
more than $10,000.
While there are increased
options for women who want to have more children, Cuban women who choose not to
have children will still have that option. Cuba’s National Office of
Information and Statistics reports that 80% of the population use
contraception.