Lidia Casas-Becerra

Chile is one of the last countries in the world where abortion is absolutely illegal. This paper reports on a study of 80 women who were prosecuted in Santiago for having had an abortion, mostly young women, eight of whom became pregnant followingrape; 40 women who were prosecuted forperforming aborh’ons, almost all older women; and 12 mainly friends and relatives who wereprosecuted as accomplices. Most of the women who had abortions were single mothers; many were domestic workers who had migrated to the city from the countryside. The great majority were reported to the police by the public hospital where they sought treatment for complications. Many spent time in prison, and most had no legal representation or were defended by inexperienced law students from Legal Aid. This paper highlights the gender and poverty-related discrimination thatpoor women having abortions face in Chile, and how the law is used to undermine medical confidentiality Although the number of court cases for abortion has been decreasing in Chile since the mid-1980s, the threat ofprosecution will persist as long as

abortion remains illegal.

A BORTION is not permitted under any circumstances in Chile, even if a woman’s life is in danger. Therapeutic abortion, that is, abortion to save the life or health of a

woman, was permitted under Chilean legislation from 1931 to 1989 under a law that was struck down in September 1989 during the last few weeks of the Pinochet military dictatorship.

In the early 198Os, the Pinochet regime made it a national policy to suppress any conduct that would negatively affect population growth. Abortion became a hotly debated issue in 1974 during the meetings of a government com- mission appointed by General Pinochet to write a new Constitution. One of the regime’s main ideologues and a fundamentalist Catholic, lawyer Jaime GuzmAn, was adamant that therapeutic abortion should be outlawed before the return to democracy. GuzmAn believed that individuals faced with martyrdom or moral fault, including women confronting pregnancy or death, ought to choose martyrdom.l,z

While other members of the commission were not inclined to support GuzmBn’s extreme position, a ‘compromise’ solution was struck, leading to the right-to-life clause in the Constitution that is still there today: ‘Every

person has a right to life, and the law will protect the life of the unborn.’ Although it was left to Parliament to formulate a law on abortion, the intention with this clause appears to have been to stop any law allowing abortion on demand from being passed later. The majority of commission members felt it necessary to leave legislators some room to pass a law allowing abortion under certain circumstances, such as rape. What they did not want was abortion on demand or any kind of broad decriminalisation of abortion.

Chilean criminal legislation, modelled after the Spanish Criminal Code of 1850, is one of the oldest in the Americas. However, while the Spanish Criminal Code has moved with the times, the Chilean Criminal Code remains unchanged. The stipulated penalty for abortion is three to five years’ imprisonment for having an abortion and 541 days to three years for performing an abortion. In a codified law tradition, whatever is stated in the law books remains relevant regardless of its application.

Despite the illegality of abortion and its associated penalties, an estimated 160,000 to 300,000 Chilean women undergo an illegal abortion each year, and the abortion rate in Chile ranks highest among six Latin American nations

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studied.3 From this point of view, there have been comparatively few prosecutions for illegal abortion in Chile. The prosecutions which did take place in the 1980s appear to have arisen from the policies of the Pinochet regime and there are some prosecutions still taking place to this day.

In the mid-1980s an estimated 1,000 court cases for abortion per year were reported. Most cases involved only one woman, although up to six individuals may have been tried in a single case. Statistics from the Ministry of Justice show that criminal proceedings on abortion charges were brought against 1,000 out of 42,602 women receiving medical care for complications follow- ing abortion (induced and spontaneous) in 1983.4

In 1990, statistics from the Ministry of Health reveal that 44,468 women received abortion-related medical care, of which an estimated two-thirds involved complications of induced abortions.5

The number of abortion trials, however, has tended to decrease. In 1983, 15 out of the 230 women sentenced to a term in prison in Chile (6 per cent) were convicted on abortion charges. That number fell to 10 out of 423 women (2.4 per cent) in 1993.6,7 Proportionately more women were being tried and sentenced for traditionally male offences, such as involvement in the drug trade, than for traditionally female offences such as abortion and infanticide. In addition, the absolute number of prosecutions for abortion has declined. While in 1984 the Santiago Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over most of the city, heard 197 abortion cases, by 1991 the number had dropped to 45.8

The search for information Several studies have shown that the application and execution of the criminal liability system is socially skewed in Chile, with the poor grossly overrepresented in the criminal justice and prison system.g Our interest lay in that direction. We set out to examine the profile of Chilean women tried for abortion, and the facts behind their prosecutions. Soon after we started, we reallsed that our information would be incomplete unless we included the providers who performed the abortions, and others who were tried as accomplices.

The research was conducted in two stages: the

first involved a review of cases from 1977 to 1995 that were on file with the Legal Aid office at the Santiago Women’s Prison.1o The second was a countrywide study of court files for 1983-84 and 1990-91, which remains unpublished. This paper summarises the primary findings of the Santiago study with some additional information from the countrywide research.

The search for information began in the prison’s Legal Aid files for data on the age, length of education, occupation, number of children, and marital status of the women who had been imprisoned. Legal Aid offices are nm on a shoe- string by the government.ll Their facilities at the Women’s Prison did not include a filing system or a telephone, much less a computer. Client files were simply tied together with string into heavy bundles, which had to be untied and searched by hand to find the relevant tiles. Since these bundles were not classified according to any identifiable criteria, we were unable to ascertain whether the files we found did in fact represent all the cases handled by the Legal Aid office in the period under review.

We also discovered that data were often not recorded by the Legal Aid staff who conducted the intake interviews, which made for a large number of blanks marked unknown’ ln some of the categories that concerned us. Hence, with few exceptions, most percentages reported here were calculated on the basis of what had been recorded. However, we estimate that the ‘unknowns’ tend to follow the general trend of the ‘knowns’.

We found and reviewed the tiles of 132 women and men. These included 80 women who had obtained abortions, 40 abortion providers (of whom 39 were women), and 12 accomplices (eight women and four men, the majority of whom helped women to obtain abortions). We also reviewed and recorded the arguments filed by the women’s defence lawyers, when they had a lawyer, and copies of the verdicts whenever these were included. In 1994 we conducted personal interviews with three women: an 18 year old who had been in jail for three months, a woman who had been given a three-year suspended sentence in 1992, and a provider who spent six months in jail awaiting sentencing on abortion and manslaughter charges.

Poverty was the common thread in all these cases. Not one prosecuted woman had had an

Reproductive Health Matters, No 9, May 1997

abortion performed by a trained physician or midwife. All underwent high-risk procedures involving the insertion of knitting needles, rubber catheters or the like.

profile of the women who had abortions Of the 80 women prosecuted for having abortions the oldest was 44 and the youngest was 17, while fully 63 per cent were in the 18-26 age group. Although only people aged 18 or over are held criminally liable under Chilean law, minors aged 16 to 18 may be tried as adults in court if a family judge rules that they have acted with discernment. Two recent studies of Chilean women seeking hospital care due to abortion- related complications similarly found that most were in their 20s.12,13

About 60 per cent of the 80 women who had abortions were single. About one third were married or had a common-law spouse. We found only sketchy data on schooling, since most court records merely state whether the prosecuted are literate, which is all that is required by Chilean law. Four per cent of the women were listed as wholly illiterate, 6 per cent as partially illiterate, and 21 per cent as ‘able to read and write’, a category encompassing from 1 up to 12 years of education. The largest group with identifiable schooling had an incomplete secondary education. Three women had received post-secondary vocational training; none had a university education.

A woman seeking an abortion is implicitly stating that, regardless of what the law says, she does not want to become a mother at that particular time. An overwhelming majority of these women already had children. Twenty-three of the women were single mothers, most with one child, and the majority were working women whose pregnancies would have hindered their employment opportunities or exposed them to job loss.

Fifty-two per cent of the women who obtained abortions were domestic workers, some in a live-in situation, In Chile, most live-in domestics are migrants who come to the city from the countryside to work and who leave their children in the care of their families in order to do so. To these women, a pregnancy would have represented not just unwanted motherhood, but

also the possible loss of their job and their ability to support their families back home - and in some cases also homelessness. Others were factory workers or labourers enrolled in a government make-work programme that paid them 25 per cent of the minimum wage.14 About one third of the women were not in the paid labour force.

Guillermina was 19 in 1994. She had spent almost three months in jail when we interviewed her. She explained that her decision to have an aborhon was based on her own life experience and had been her own choice, and she did not want anyone else to be punished for what she did. Born out of wedlock she felt she was never treated like the rest of her siblings, and she did not want the same to happen to a child of hers. She had come to Santiago atIer finishing high school, had been working as a maid during the day and going to school at night. When she found she was pregnant, she had asked her boyfriend for help, but he had vanished affer hearing the news. She told us of harsh treatment by the woman doctor who had treated her for incomplete abortion at the hospital. No one in her family knew that she was in prison, and she did not intend to tell anyone except a friend from her home town. She felt that having an abortion was the best decision she could make.

In some instances, abortion was imposed by wretched living conditions; in other cases women sought an abortion to protect their health, their lives and the well-being of the rest of their families. In addition, 10 per cent of the women in the Santiago study were pregnant as a result of rape and the data we gathered in the nationwide study portrays a similar reality. Several women in both the Santiago and the countrywide studies clearly met the require- ments for therapeutic abortion, which had previously been legal.

Irma was 36. She had given birth to four children; one had died. In 1990, complications following a poorly-handled appendectomy had led to a colostomy. She had had her IUD removed at that time at the hospital. She was advised that getting pregnant could be life-threatening, but was not told about alternatives for birth control. Some months later she became pregnant, and

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remembering what the doctor had said, consulted with her family and decided to terminate her pregnancy. She went to a woman who inserted a rubber catheter into her uterus and left it in place for more than 24 hours. Irma suffered tox’c shock, as a result of which she required a hysterectomy and had to have herlefi arm amputated. She spent two and a half months in hospital, under police detention, and upon discharge horn hospital was put into prison for several days until she could be released on bail. In 1992, the ruling on her case was handed down. She was found guilty and given a three-year suspended sentence. She felt that God had punished her enough by the loss of her arm, and she did not understand why she should have been turned over to the police.

Profile of the abortion providers None of the 40 abortion providers in the cases we reviewed was a trained medical practitioner. Most were older women, substantially older than the women they were helping to terminate their pregnancies. Fully 56 per cent were over 50 years of age and one third were over 60. The youngest was 33, while the oldest was more than 75. One elderly provider died before the criminal proceedings against her had ended, in fact.

By and large, providers were themselves poor women who only knew how to perform high-risk procedures. The abortion methods they used required experience and practice, which younger women were less likely to have. The cost of an abortion ranged from US $50 to US $200. Prices often depended on the method used, and on whether the provider felt sympathy for the woman. We found two cases where two women had had an abortion from the same provider, but for very different prices. Oddly enough, the woman whose abortion was riskier had been charged less.

Almost half the providers were married or separated, while 29 per cent were single and 22 per cent were widowed. The percentage of non- literate providers was nearly six times greater than among the younger women having abortions. Approximately 23 per cent were not literate, four per cent could barely read or write and 27 per cent were listed as literate. Among those with identifiable schooling, most had only one to six years of education. Accounting for these differences is the fact

that only in the past 20 years has access to education improved for most working-class Chilean women.

Soledad was 47 in 1994, a mother of three. She had learned to do abortions as a midwife’s assistant and she had performed her first abortion on herself At the time of the interview she had been in prison for six months, awaiting a bail hearing. Years before, afier becoming accident- ally involved in a case in which she had had no role, she had decided not to perform any more abortions. The case which put her in jail had been a woman for whom she did the abortion as a special favour, al?er much pleading. She felt she had made two serious mistakes: the tlrst was performing another abortion and the second was believing what the woman said about how many weeks pregnant she was. After the procedure, while they were waiting for the abortion to happen, the woman went into shock. Soledad took her to hospital, but she died. In 1995, when our study was finished, the verdict on her was still pending.

Profile of the accomplices In general, the accomplices who were pro- secuted were friends or relatives of the woman who had an abortion. They had helped her to locate a provider, or gone with her to the provider or to the hospital afterwards. Eight of the 12 accomplices identified by this study were women friends or relatives of the woman who had an abortion. Three of the men were the partners of the woman who was prosecuted for having an abortion, and one was an accomplice of an abortion provider.

Accomplices were identified as such either when a woman was admitted to hospital, following police interrogation or through statements made to police by members of the woman’s family. We found scant information on the amount of time they spent in prison, but if they were found guilty, accomplices generally received suspended sentences ranging from 41 to 200 days. One mother was convicted of being an accomplice of her 17-year-old daughter. She spent nearly 3 months in jail awaiting sentencing and was then given a 61-day suspended sentence.

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Violation of medical confidentiality Most of the cases of women who had abortions in our study (76 per cent) had been reported to the police by the public hospital where they had sought treatment for complications. Save for one, all the hospitals we came across in the files of the Santiago prison were publicly run facilities providing medical care to the poor and indigent. Data from the nationwide study bore out this finding. The remaining 24 per cent of the women were reported to the police by partners, relatives or employers (11 per cent) and some were found out by police by mere chance (4 per cent). One woman turned herself in; the rest were not recorded. Providers and accomplices are not included in these figures. Most of these were charged following a confession by the woman, or were identified at the hospital if they happened to have taken the woman there.

Why were these women reported to the police? Why, as we discovered, were some of them interrogated - ostensibly for treatment- related reasons - upon arrival at an emergency ward or in their hospital bed, and coerced into confessing to a backstreet abortion? Who reported them? Whatever had become of doctor-patient privilege? We were astounded at the ample discretionary powers medical personnel seemed to have in choosing to report women to the police.

The facts are that the information women provided to hospital staff was written down in their clinical records. Staff who suspected an illegal abortion were able to make the decision to call the police from these records. The criteria they used to pick out which patients to report is unclear. It is highly likely that this depended both on the hospital itself and on the personal biases of the staff involved. In all cases, however, the women who were reported were poor; this kind of violation of doctor-patient privilege is most likely to occur in public hospitals where patients cannot or do not know they can defend their rights.

Some of the women were placed under arrest while they were still on the maternity ward and were interrogated there. Others were reported through the labyrinthine, bureaucratic proced- ures of the Chilean public service. The sequence of reporting often began with a memorandum from the head of Obstetrics & Gynaecology to the hospital administrator, who would forward

the information to the district director, who would in turn direct his legal department to submit the details to the co~rt.~~

This state of affairs reached its peak in the early 198Os, at the same time as the pro-natalist population policy was instituted. Some hospital directors, probably those sympathetic to the regime, supported the government’s policy in this way. One Santiago hospital went so far as to give the legal department of the Ministry of Health a monthly list of all the women who had received treatment for a suspected induced abortion. One woman who was treated in that hospital in 1982, for example, had her name included on such a list only in 1984, and was arrested and tried only five years later in 1989, in spite of there being no evidence available whatsoever to prosecute with after so many years.

The crucial issue was and remains one of medical confidentiality. Hospitals justified their decision to report suspected criminal abortion cases on Section 85 (5) of the Chilean Code of Criminal Procedure, which requires medical personnel to report all suspected violations of the law that come to their attention in the course of their duties. At the same time, however, Section 247 (2) of the Criminal Code makes it an offence to reveal confidential information people have provided to doctors and certain other pro- fessionals. The courts in Chile have normally come down on the side of reporting the suspected offence, and to this day medical personnel are permitted to report a suspected abortion to the police.

Indeed, our countrywide study found a case in the city of Temuco of two doctors who were charged by the police with failing to report an induced abortion in 1984. The doctors’ defence was that they could not be sure medically whether the woman had had an induced abortion. The judge ruled, however, that it was up to the court rather than the doctors to decide whether the abortion had been spontaneous or induced. While not all members of Chile’s legal community would support such interpretations of the law, the advocates of medical confiden- tiality are in the minority.“j

This point of law has been dealt with quite differently by the courts in Argentina, where criminal proceedings that were deemed to have arisen from a breach of medical confidentiality

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- thirmn out of court. The judges based their on the doctrine of the lesser evil; that is,

if -men fear being reported to the police, they might become too afraid to seek the medical help they need.17

However, facing the police is merely one aspect of the serious abuse that some women are forced to endure in Chilean hospitals. Our study in Santiago found two cases in which women were beaten to force a confession from them. Our nationwide study came across a physician who, on at least two separate occasions, com- pelled patients to sign a self-incriminating statement before he would agree to provide treatment or sign a hospital release form. In both these cases, this physician was seeking evidence to incriminate a colleague whom he suspected of performing abortions.

Yet despite these frightening episodes, the fact remains that only a very few women who undergo illegal abortions are reported to the police in comparison to the number who actually have and perform abortions each year. Most medical practitioners, even if they oppose abortion, also oppose involving the police in such cases because of the greater harm that would result. As in the judgement cited from Argentina, they reason that more women’s lives would be lost. Indeed, in our nationwide study we came across several instances of women who had died from abortion-related complications, because they were too afraid to seek help, and one woman who fled from the hospital when she overheard someone saying that the police had been called.

Guilty or innocent? Of the cases we reviewed of women prosecuted on abortion charges in Santiago, 37 per cent of those who had an abortion and 50 per cent of providers were found guilty.18 Most of the women found guilty of obtaining an abortion were given a suspended sentence, due to ‘the nature of the crime’ and the absence of a previous criminal record. In Chile, in addition to getting a criminal record, anyone serving a suspended sentence - (usually about 18 months to 3 years) must report to a probation officer and fulfill other requirements set out by the law. However, because of Chile’s obsolete court system, most of the women in our

study did spend time in preventive custody just awaiting a hearing.

If a woman was found guilty, it was likely that her provider was also charged and convicted. If the judge concluded beyond reasonable doubt that she had had an abortion, the grounds for conviction were often similar. Sometimes direct, incriminating evidence was unavailable due to inconclusive forensic reports and medical diag- nosis based solely on the woman’s statements at the hospital.

In some of these cases, the women were tried on the presumption that an abortion had taken place. According to Chilean law, presumption can be based on circumstantial evidence and testimony by relevant witnesses - doctors, midwives and other third parties - and other findings in the case. This evidence is gathered during police investigations, which are con- ducted in secrecy. Circumstantial evidence, expert testimony, and the statements made by the woman and/or the provider can then be used to convince a judge that an abortion has taken place. However, it is difficult to generalise about what evidence is actually considered sufficient, since even within the same court different judges have ruled differently after hearing similar cases.

Although the law stipulates stiffer penalties for having an abortion than for carrying one out, the number of days women spent in jail did not bear this out. Women who had abortions spent an average of 41 days in jail while abortion providers spent an average of 133 days in jail. In the Santiago study, however, some women who had an abortion were kept in prison awaiting trial for months, often because they did not have a lawyer who could get them released on bail.

Most of the cases we examined in the countrywide study, on the other hand, were temporarily stayed for lack of evidence. The majority of women in the nationwide study did not have defence lawyers and of those who did, the lawyer was often assigned through Legal Aid. Legal Aid services are provided by articling students who are doing an unpaid, six-month practicum as part of the training requirements for becoming a lawyer. People with low incomes must of necessity rely on Legal Aid for assistance, although recent studies indicate that clients are far from satisfied with the service they receive.’

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Discrimination on grounds of poverty Chilean women from upper- and middle-class backgrounds do not have to resort to back-alley abortions. They can afford a proper procedure performed on a hush-hush basis by sympathetic or mercenary doctors. As a result, they are unlikely to suffer complications and, if any arise they can receive private treatment on the quiet. In contrast, poor women having high-risk abortions were clearly the ones most likely to have to seek treatment in a public hospital following complications, and then to be turned over to police, prosecuted, and sentenced by a court on abortion charges.

These cases speak volumes. The treatment of the women whose cases we studied raises serious ethical questions concerning the way law is practised in Chile and its impact on the practice of medicine in relation to poor women. We found a legalised lack of confidentiality of medical records and violation of the doctor- patient relationship, and the questionable practice of incarcerating women who have been forced to put their lives at risk and who require urgent medical attention.

These cases raise issues of poverty, violence and abandonment - but also of choice. The differential treatment that poor women are subjected to under the law amounts to a clear breach of their constitutional rights, including

the right to life, health, privacy, due process, legal representation and equal treatment under the law. In fact, we found flagrant violations of both Chilean legislation and international human rights covenants time and again during our research. Ironically, even when they were represented by Legal Aid, their attorneys were inexperienced and overworked or did not know enough to make these legal arguments.

Although the number of prosecutions might be few in comparison to the overall number of abortions, the fact remains that those Chilean women who are reported and prosecuted will continue to be exposed to abuse and discrimination as long as abortion remains a criminal offence.

Acknowledgements This paper is based on research published in Spanish in 1996 in Mujeres Procesadas por Aborto, part of a joint project between the Foro Abierto de Salud y Derechos Repro- ductivos, Santiago, Chile, and the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, New York City, USA.

Correspondence Lidia Casas, Avenida Suecia 0119, Oficina 507, Providencia, Santiago, Chile. Fax: 562-231-6966. E-mail: lcasas@chasqui.mic.cl

References and Notes Panel Abort0 Terapeutico. Cuadernos de Trabajo No.4. Departamento de Trabajo Medico y Action GremiaI, College of Physicians of Chile. Santiago, 1989. Actas Oficiales de la Comisidn Constituyente. Vol3, Garantias Constitucionales, Sesion 87a de1 14 de Noviembre de 1974. Reptiblica de Chile, Santiago 1974. Ferrando D, Hawker S, LIera S et al, 1994. Abort0 Clandestine: Una ReaJidad Latinoamericana. Alan Guttmacher Institute, New York. This study estimated that 35 per cent of pregnancies in Chile end in abortion. This percentage was higher than in Brazil (31 per cent), Colombia (26 per cent), Mexico (17 per cent),

Peru (30 per cent) and the Dominican Republic (28 per 4. cent). Estimates for Chile indicate that for every ten live births there are six abortions, compared to four abortions per ten live births in most of the other countries in the study save 5. Mexico, with two abortions per ten live births. It is unclear why 6. Chile has such a high rate of abortion, especially since use of modern contraceptives is also high. However, Chilean women are having fewer children. In 1992, urban dwellers had 2.26 and rural women 3.14 (overall 2.39). Source: Mujeres de Chile: 7. Radiograffa en ntimeros: 8 de Mano 1994. International Women’s Day Issue. National

Statistics Institute, Santiago 1994. From Health Statistics: Hospital Releases for 1983 and 1990, published by the National Statistics, Ministry of Health, Santiago, in 1985 and 1992 respectively. Annals of Justice and Police for 1983, published In 1984. Correa J and Jimenez M, 1995. Acceso de Jos Pobres a la Justicia. Vanderschueren F and Oviedo E, teds). Programa de Gestion Urbana, UNCHS, PNUD Banco MundIaI, SUR, Centro de EstudIos SociaIes y Education, Ediciones Sur, Santiago. Jiienez M, 1994. EJ Proceso Penal CbiJeno ylos Derechos Humanos. Vol II, Estudios Empiricos, Cuadernos de

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Analisis Juridico. Diego Portales University Law School, Santiago. Annals of Justice: 1984. National Statistics Institute, Santiago, 1986. Annals ofJustice: 1992. National Statistics Institute, Santiago, (no year stated). Silva I and Rubio C, 1994. Drogas y mujeres en prisien: Evolucien de una decada. Revista Chilena de Ciencia Penitenciaria y de Derecho Penal. No.20.3a Epoca, Santiago.

y estilos atribucionales en mujeres que ingresan al Hospital Barros Luco por complicaciones de aborto. Undergraduate thesis, School of Psychology, Diego Pot-tales University, Santiago.

13. Salazar G, 1993. Accien sobre abort0 inducido mediante el apoyo integral a la mujer post abortante. Institute de la Mujer, Santiago.

14. The neo-conservative economic plan implemented by the Pinochet regime made

10. Casas-Becerra L, 1996. Mujeres unemployment skyrocket. Procesadas por Aborto. Foro Discontent led the government Abierto de Salud y Derechos to create this emergency Reproductivos. Santiago. employment programme, which

11. Legal Aid is for people who was in effect from 1975 to 1988. cannot afford a lawyer and is 15. Chile’s criminal justice system provided free. does not provide for an

1ZLeal S and Ortega R, 1991. A mi independent prosecutor. Judges no me va a pasar: description y conduct an Investigation and analisis de la realidad psicosocial then lay charges if they concur

that a crime may have been committed. Later, they must pass judgement on their own fUIdiIlgS.

16,Leading statements of dissent include: - Rtcheberry A, 1976. Derecho Penal. Tomo IV, Parte Especial, 2nd ed. Editorial National Gabriela Mistral, Santiago. - Silva H, 1995. Medicina Legal y Psiquiatia Forense. Tomo II. Editorial Juridica de Chile, Santiago.

17. Garcia E and Basile A, 1990. Abort0 e Infanticidio: Aspectos Juridicos y Mkdico-legales. Editorial Universidad, Buenos Aires.

18.In the Chilean judicial system, trials are not conducted in open court with evidence presented orally; rulings are simply read out to the defendant.

R&sum6 Le Chili est l’un des derniers pays au monde oti I’avortement reste strictement illegal. Cet article est un rapport d’etude portant sur 80 femmes - jeunes pour la plupart - poursuivies a Santiago pour s’etre fait avorter (huit de ces grossesses &ant la consequence dun viol), 40 femmes, presque tomes assez agees, accusees d’avoir pratique un avortement, et 12 amies ou parentes poursuivies pour complicite. La plupart des avortees Btaient des meres celibataires; beaucoup etaient des domestiques venues de la campagne P la ville. Dans la grande majorite des cas, les femmes avaient 6tC signalees a la police par l’hopital public oh elles etaient venues faire soigner des complications. Beaucoup ont passe un certain temps en prison, et la plupart n’avaient pas de representant legal, ou bien Btaient defendues par de jeunes avocats inexperimentes commis par l’Assistance juridique. L’article fait ressortir la discrimination sexiste et IiCe a la pauvrete que les femmes pauvres qui se font avorter doivent affronter au Chili, et montre comment la loi est utilisee pour tourner le secret medical. Bien que le nombre de comparutions pour avortement ait diminue au Chili depuis 1985, la menace de poursuites demeurera aussi longtemps que I’avortement restera illegal.

Resumen Chile es uno de 10s kltimos paises de1 mundo en 10s que el abort0 es absolutamente ilegal. Este ensayo se centra en un estudio de 80 mujeres, en su mayoria jovenes, que fueron procesadas en Santiago por haber abortado. Ocho quedaron embarazadas tras ser violadas; 40, casi todas mujeres mayores, fueron procesadas por realizar abortos, y 12 en su mayoria amigas/os y familia- res que fueron procesadas/os coma complices. La mayor parte de las mujeres que abortaron eran madres solteras. Muchas eran trabajadoras domesticas que habian emigrado de1 campo a la ciudad. La gran mayoria fueron denunciadas a la policia por el hospital pkblico al que acudieron en busca de tratamiento a causa de complica- ciones. Muchas pasaron tiempo en la cartel y la mayor parte carecia de representation legal o fueron defendidas por estudiantes de derecho inexpertos, a traves de ayuda juridica. Este ensayo hate destacar la discrimination de genera y pobreza a que se enfrentan las mujeres pobres que abortan en Chile, y coma se utiliza la ley para socavar la confidencialidad medica. Aunque el nlimero de cases llevados a juicio por abort0 ha estado decreciendo en Chile desde a mediados de 10s 80, la amenaza de procesamiento per- sistira, mientras el abort0 siga siendo ilegal.

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