CHILE
Daily Journal
By LUIS ANDRES HENAO Associated Press
First Posted: May 28, 2015
SANTIAGO, Chile — The video shows a woman climbing a stairwell, her belly visibly pregnant, as she offers suggestions: Make sure there are no security cameras. Be careful not to look down or you might regret it.
She tumbles backward as the screen goes black. “When you reach the bottom everything will be OK,” she says.
The video is one of a series of mock abortion tutorials, part of a public campaign urging Chile to allow women to end pregnancies in cases of rape or medical complications. It would be a radical change for Chile, one of only six countries that prohibit all abortion, according to the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights.
The debate comes as Chile, one of Latin America’s most socially conservative countries, grapples with shifting views on once-taboo issues. The mostly Roman Catholic country began to allow divorce in 2004. Earlier this year, Congress recognized civil unions for gay couples and, recently, a pilot program in Santiago harvested the country’s first legal medical marijuana.
The changing attitudes mark a generational shift, as young people born after the 1973-1990 military dictatorship come of age. The trend has accelerated since a wave of student protests demanding educational reform began in 2011 and in the wake of Catholic priest sex-abuse scandals that have provoked questioning of church doctrine.
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