International
A year on from Argentine abortion law, change is slow
AFP
A year ago Argentina joined the limited ranks of Latin American countries to have legalized abortion, but while that gave hope to millions of women, changing mentalities, practices and infrastructure has proved more difficult.
“In small villages, you go for an ultrasound in the morning and in the afternoon the baker congratulates you on your pregnancy,” Monik Rodriguez, 33, told AFP.
Rodriguez, who has three children, runs a service accompanying women who want to have an abortion in Salta, a conservative Catholic province in the South American country.
Away from the big city of Buenos Aires, where women erupted in celebration when the law was approved, many in more remote and conservative areas of Argentina face the same stigma as before.
“There are still things that need to come out of hiding,” said Rodriguez, who can take up to 125 telephone calls a month as part of the project launched by the Women’s Strength civil association.
“The most important thing is to listen. It’s about trying to overcome the hurdles, accompanying them through the health system so they don’t get lost in the bureaucratic labyrinth.”
Rodriguez takes calls from all sorts: teenagers and first-time mothers to women with large families and even those that are pre-menopausal.
“On this line, abortion is not recommended but neither is motherhood romanticized,” said Rodriguez, who underwent a secret abortion a decade ago when already mother to one child.
“I was late and had an abortion. It went badly and I had to go to hospital. The tests showed I hadn’t been pregnant.
“It was the secrecy that created worry. Along with misinformation, that is what puts us at risk.”
The government estimates that 3,000 women died between 1983 and 2020 in clandestine abortions, of which there were up to 500,000 a year.
– Anti-abortion pressure –
For a century, abortion was only legal in cases of rape or if the mother’s life was at risk.
Legalization has not led to a sudden spate of abortions, particularly in places like Salta.
Miranda Ruiz, 33, is the only doctor in Tartagal — a small town of 75,000 people in Salta — not to exercise her legal right to be a conscientious objector to carrying out abortions.
Anti-abortion groups in the town are influential.
In September, Ruiz was briefly detained following an accusation by the aunt of a 21-year-old patient that she had performed an abortion beyond the authorized limit of 14 weeks.
Feminist groups are demanding that her case be dismissed.
“It is a way of bringing the other doctors to heel,” said Sofia Fernandez, a member of the National Campaign for the Right to Abortion — a collective of 300 feminist organizations that have been fighting for 15 years for change.
They say there are still 1,500 people facing criminal cases over abortions.
The complaint against Ruiz was the only one made in 2021, although there have been 36 court filings against the law, mostly claiming it is unconstitutional.
“Of those, 24 have already been dismissed,” said Valeria Isla, the director of sexual and reproductive health at the health ministry.
– ‘Huge inequality’ –
“There is a huge inequality in access to the practice depending on location,” said Isla.
During the course of 2021, the number of specialist medical teams carrying out abortions rose from 943 to 1,243 despite the pandemic complicating matters.
Distribution of the drug misoprostol, which chemically provokes abortions, rose from 9,000 in 2019 to more than 43,000 in 2021.
“But there is a lot of demand and we’re not able to increase (the number of) these (teams) at the necessary rate. It’s a structural stumbling block,” added Isla.
There were more than 32,000 abortions conducted in public hospitals and clinics in 2021, said Isla, whose big goal for 2022 is to train medical teams specialized in abortions, to make their services more widely available and to inform women of their rights and the tools at their disposal.
That would help Rodriguez avoid taking calls from desperate young teenagers like one “locked in a bathroom crying … she had just dropped a home pregnancy test down the toilet and couldn’t afford to buy another one.”
International
HMPV infection rate declining in Northern China, health official reports
The rate of human metapneumovirus (HMPV) infections, which is similar to the flu, in northern China is decreasing, a health official said on Sunday, amid international concern about a potential pandemic.
HMPV, which belongs to the same family as the human respiratory syncytial virus, causes symptoms similar to the flu or a cold, such as fever, cough, and nasal congestion. Symptoms often resolve on their own, although they can lead to lower respiratory tract infections in children, the elderly, and immunocompromised individuals.
“Human metapneumovirus is not a new virus and has been with humans for at least several decades,” said Wang Liping, a researcher at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, during a press conference by the National Health Commission of China.
Wang added that the recent increase in cases of the virus, first detected in the Netherlands in 2001, is due to better detection methods.
International
Elon Musk sends Cybertrucks with Starlink and supplies to assist Los Angeles wildfire victims
Rescuers are working to contain the wildfires in Los Angeles, where the death toll stands at least 24. Amid the tragedy, billionaire Elon Musk announced the deployment of Cybertrucks with Starlink and supplies to help the victims.
“We’re going to place Cybertrucks with Starlinks and free WiFi in a grid pattern in the areas that need it most in the Los Angeles/Malibu metropolitan area,” Musk posted on X.
“Security personnel will also be added to the vehicle, along with snacks and drinks for passersby,” he explained.
The Cybertrucks being used are scheduled deliveries, so Musk apologized in advance.
“We apologize to those awaiting Cybertruck deliveries in California over the next few days. We need to use those trucks as mobile base stations to provide power to Starlink internet terminals in Los Angeles areas without connectivity. A new truck will be delivered by the end of the week,” he stated.
International
Trump announces creation of external revenue service to collect foreign tariffs
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced on Tuesday the creation of a body to “collect tariffs, duties, and all revenue from foreign sources,” comparing it to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which collects taxes from Americans.
“We will begin charging those who profit at our expense through trade, and they will finally start paying what they owe,” Trump said in a message on his social media platform, Truth Social.
He indicated that the new body, to be called the External Revenue Service, will begin operations on January 20, the day Trump is sworn in as the 47th president of the U.S. and when he is expected to make the first decisions of his second term.
The Republican also criticized “soft and pathetically weak trade deals” that have been in place until now.
“The U.S. economy has provided growth and prosperity to the world while we taxed ourselves,” he stated.
Trump has been insisting on raising tariffs for months and has even declared that “tariff” is, for him, “the most beautiful word in the dictionary.”
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