Is there a link between abortion rights and democracy? 

Arroyo Navarrete, Larisssa. “Is there a link between abortion rights and democracy?” US News and World Report, Oct. 12th 2017

My article was about the link between abortion rights in Latin America. In Latin America there are often social stigmas or laws that prevent women from getting abortions. It is not uncommon for women to have secret “backstreet abortions” which very dangerous and can lead to death. Six Latin American countries ban abortions under all circumstances, outside of Latin America there are only two other countries in the world with the same abortion laws. Studies show that laws prohibiting abortions do not stop abortions from being performed and most Latin American countries do not ban abortions. One example of a country that demonstrates the correlation between abortion rights and democracy is Honduras. In 2009, a Honduran coup overthrew the government and brought violence to the area. As democracy left Honduras, abortion rights were restricted. In Nicaragua and El Salvador the situation is similar. In 2007 the president of Nicaragua ended term limits. Immediately after ending term limits, the president began to restrict abortion rights. In El Salvador the country is extremely violent and law enforcement is corrupt. In this country, a constitutional amendment fully criminalized abortion under any circumstances. ‘

This article does a good job of separating the people of Latin America from the corrupt regimes in specific countries. The article also does a good job of talking about specific Latin American countries rather than grouping them all together. Too often in the media, all Latin American countries are grouped together and talked about as one country which can be harmful when the article is discussing negative aspects of the countries involved. Finally, this article does a good job of balancing the good from the bad. Articles about Latin America often only talk about the problems with the countries discussed. This is a form of conditioning that makes people believe that Latin America is all bad. This is obviously not true and by talking about the successes in specific Latin American countries, this article offers a more even and realistic image of Latin America.

I picked this article because abortion laws and democracy are indicative of the status of women in Latin America. The criminalization of abortion in countries like El Salvador tells women that they are not valuable as human beings, instead women are often treated like “receptacles” for babies like the Colombian constitution says. This is a huge blow to the identity of women in Latin American countries like El Salvador. I think that this article did a good job of portraying Latin America and its citizens because it was written by a woman from Costa Rica. It is great that this article was picked up by an American news source. If more articles were written like this there would not be as strong of a social stigma surrounding Latin America and its citizens.