Managua, Nicaragua, Feb 23, 2010 / 13:05 pm
In an attempt to pressure officials in Nicaragua to legalize abortion, feminist groups are drawing attention to the dramatic case of a pregnant woman suffering from cancer, arguing that the only chance of survival for “Amelia,” the fictitious name given to the woman, is to undergo an abortion.
Pro-abortion feminist groups, who have not released any further details about “Amelia,” claim “therapeutic” abortion is her only option and that she is being denied the procedure. They have sent letters to the director of the Escuela Oscar Danilo Rosales Hospital in the city of Leon, where the woman resides, to the Minister of Health, to the justices of the Supreme Court and to Nicaragua’s president, demanding that abortion be legalized in the country.
Abortion supporters are led by Vilma Nunez, president of the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights; Dr. Oscar Flores Vigil, president of the Nicaraguan Society of Gynecology and Obstetrics; Marta Maria Blandon, as well as other members of the “Strategic Group for the Legalization of Abortion.”
According to Carlos Polo, director of the Latin American Office for the Population Research Institute (PRI), this is another “fabricated” case created by the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York. “Its obvious to anyone who follows these cases presented by abortion groups in recent years that the ‘urgency’ coincides perfectly with the political agenda of those supporting legalized abortion.”