By now, most of us are aware of the Zika virus outbreak, which began in Brazil and is rapidly spreading to the rest of the Americas.
Though a usually rare virus with mild effects, it has been discovered that contracting the virus during pregnancy can lead to severe birth defects.
In response, El Salvador has encouraged its female population to avoid getting pregnant until at least 2018. This plea has been echoed by several other Latin American countries.
Their request is abhorrently irresponsible, hypocritical and, by my standards, immoral.
The government of El Salvador offers women no help in accomplishing this goal.
It’s as if the El Salvadoran government has never heard of the phrase “unwanted pregnancy.”
According to a study published in the U.S. National Library of Medicine, half of all pregnancies in El Salvador are unwanted.
And that’s under “normal” conditions, meaning no outbreaks.
This is, in part, because contraception use is a controversial issue in El Salvador.
According to Pew Research Center, 23 percent of people in El Salvador consider contraception use immoral.
While this may seem low, it is the highest rate among all of the countries surveyed in South, Central, and North America and is the 10th highest internationally.
There is definitely a religious and cultural stigma surrounding birth control in El Salvador.
As Time Magazine notes, there is an enormously “unmet need for contraception and sex education” in El Salvador. In a country of enormous inequality, poor women and those living in rural areas are especially likely to experience difficulty in acquiring birth control.
The government has given no indication that it will make any effort to aid women, of all demographics, by making contraception more readily available.
Additionally, abortion is illegal in all cases in El Salvador. Even if the pregnancy is a result of rape or would endanger the life of the mother, it is still illegal — so much so that women and their doctor can be jailed for receiving or performing the procedure.
I’ve deduced, then, that the only practical way a woman can avoid pregnancy is abstinence.
The El Salvadoran government has used the Zika virus to make the entire country celibate.
Now, I’m not a psychologist, but I hardly think the nation’s women pleading celibacy will help the rape statistics in El Salvador. According to the Overseas Security Advisory Council, an average of 376 rapes per year were reported in 2013 and 2014.
Asking women to avoid pregnancy in the face of this virus seems like a practical, responsible medical request, but it puts women in a difficult position if their government is going to do nothing to help them.
If El Salvador made efforts to distribute contraceptives to its citizens or at least made them more readily available, I would find their request more acceptable.
If they would legalize abortion, I would find the notion that women could avoid giving birth for two years more believable.
El Salvador, and its neighbors, must acknowledge that a virus outbreak is not a tool to control women’s bodies. If you’re going to ask them to avoid pregnancy, they must be given the methods to do so without giving up their sexual freedom.
