Our bodies, our health, our rights, our lives

Today is #May28. Today is The International Day of Action for Women’s Health, the day the world will rally to fight for the protection of women’s reproductive and sexual health rights, the day to raise awareness about the importance of women’s health, the day to talk openly about women’s health issues, the day to rally for change around the world, the day to take back control and power of our bodies.

And in 2019, these rights, these freedoms, these choices remain a source of much societal tension. So much so that far too many countries around the world restrict access to and legislate against a woman’s right to choose what is best for her own sexual and reproductive health.

Four states in America have recently implemented extreme anti-abortion policies, and this is in the country that is considered the poster child for the “free world”. If this is the freedom women experience in that country, imagine the luxuries that women are entitled to in less progressive countries. Luxuries such as contraception, appropriate health services, pre-natal care, post-natal care, professional treatment from healthcare providers, dignity regardless of income, race, sexual orientation, HIV status, gender or any other way society tries to divide us into neat but harmful boxes.

But let’s start at the beginning. And let’s start closer to home.

What does the law in South Africa say?

1. According to Section 9, 10, 12 and 27 of the Constitution of The Republic of South Africa;

• • Equality: The state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth.
  • Dignity: Everyone has inherent dignity and the right to have their dignity respected and protected.
  • Freedom and security of the person:
    • (1) Everyone has the right to freedom and security of the person, which includes the right—(e) not to be treated or punished in a cruel, inhuman or degrading way.
    • (2) Everyone has the right to bodily and psychological integrity, which includes the right— (a) to make decisions concerning reproduction; (b) to security in and control over their body…
  • Health care, food, water and social security: Everyone has the right to have access to— health care services, including reproductive health care…

2. According to The Choice of Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1996 (COPTA); this Act along with the South African Constitution protects the rights of autonomy and freedom regarding access to abortions. The CTOPA dictates that people are able to terminate their pregnancies – no questions asked – until the 12th week, and under certain circumstances up until the 20th week.

And while our country has very clear legal and constitutional guidelines as to a woman’s reproductive and health rights, we live in a country where the Gini Coefficient (a global measure of each country’s wealth gap and levels of inequality) is so high, we were labelled the most unequal society in the world in 2018. In a country with such poverty and inequality, despite the best intentions, the constitution will never be the lived reality of most women.

The challenges women in South Africa face when trying to obtain unhindered access to quality health care services and retain their dignity, freedom of choice, security and privacy are being further exacerbated by increasingly conservative positions taken by the countries that often supply the very aid needed to provide this health care to women living in South Africa.

According to the Global Fund for Women, The Trump administration is exporting its anti-choice measures with the global gag rule. The global gag rule prohibits organisations from receiving funding from the U.S. government if they provide services, referrals, and advocacy related to abortion internationally – even with non-U.S. government financing.  The policy covers all $8.8 billion in US global health aid, nearly 15 times the reach of previous iterations. As a result, millions of women and LGBTQI+ people worldwide are being shut off from comprehensive sexual and reproductive health information and services. 

In Stanford Social Innovation Review, Global Fund for Women’s Leila Hessini explains: “The United States is the world’s largest donor to global health, and abortion-related services are often integrated into general health care involving HIV, contraceptives, and families.” The policy then affects the whole of women’s health care in many areas.

“The global gag rule is an attack on women’s abilities to make fundamental decisions related to their reproductive and sexual lives,” said Leila Hessini, “As an American citizen I am ashamed of the ways the U.S. administration violates women’s health and rights in the U.S. and globally.” 

Half  of the 1.65 billion women age 15-44 worldwide live in countries where the global gag rule would impede otherwise legal abortion services. 

The most maddening part of this whole shit show is that it is happening because society is attempting to politicise an issue that has no place in political debates – a woman’s right to choose what is best for her body.

The issues of religion, sexuality, political party, ideology, upbringing, circumstance, should not have an impact on women’s health rights, because the none of the previously mentioned issues have any relation to these rights – they are completely 100% mutually exclusive.

And yet in this world we live in, they do.

In South Africa, many women are still unaware of their rights and our country, especially within the public healthcare system, remains one where healthcare professionals continue to stigmatise certain sexual and reproductive health choices, like abortion, contraception and STIs. A country where women are treated like sub-humans when it comes to sexual and reproductive health, even at the point of giving birth.

With young women, particularly, being verbally abused, judged, shamed and ultimately obstructed from care by those charged with providing that care.

For many this is the norm, not the exception, to have experienced some form of medical abuse – being made to wait for hours on end, being turned away on the basis of the medical professional believing you need to think about your choice a little more (as if that choice has not agonised over every waking moment since the positive result), public lectures and name-calling in order to shame the choices, and most horrifying is the abuse many South African women experience when they need care most – in labour.

Due to all of this, South African women engage of risky reproductive and sexual health behaviour, according to head.org, “50% of abortions within South Africa continue to occur outside of designated health facilities.”.

The more we as women have open and informed conversations regarding our rights, the more we will be able to normalise these rights in action. The more we do not accept the infringement of our rights, the more we stand up for others who don’t feel empowered to stand up for themselves, the more we defend these rights when we see that they are being violated, the more women who stand up, speak up and fight back, the more we will give those rights teeth, the more we, as women, will take back our right to bodily autonomy, our right to choose and our power.

It is our bodies, our health, our right, our life, our choice and no-one has the right to take that from us.

Leigh Tayler is a writer, a Leo, a feminist, a fan of The Walking Dead, a lover of all things unicorn and nearly succumbs to rage strokes on the daily. Oh, and she also happens to be a mother to one small feral child. She wears her heart on her sleeve and invariably tells it like it is, the good the bad and the ugly. She juggles her writing, her family, her sanity in-between a demanding career in advertising. She has no shame in sharing her harebrained and high-strung anecdotes on her experience of motherhood, no sugar coating, no gloss, just her blunt truth with a healthy side order of sarcasm. Find her on her blog, The Ugly Truth of Being a Mom.

If you found this article useful or interesting, why not subscribe to Parenty’s weekly newsletter for a wrap up of that week’s best content.