This has been my favorite ethnography to read thus far in this course for a few different reasons. First, I am very interested in the subject matter at hand: women’s reproductive health in developing Latin American countries. I wrote my public policy capstone paper on the abortion ban in El Salvador, and after reading the introduction and chapter 3, found a lot of parallels between the two countries, including health care, infrastructure, and the treatment of women. I also really liked the way that this book was written. The language was straightforward and easy to digest vs some of the other readings which were frankly very dense and hard to follow. The first line of the introduction particularly stuck out to me: “I never did find out exactly how the flat cardboard box full of vials of Pitocin had come to fill half a shelf in Juana’s home; it certainly wasn’t what I had expected to see after working my way through the chickens that walked in and out of her small adobe home in rural Oaxaca.” Not only is this a great hook, but also makes the chapter read like a novel, which piqued my interest even more.
Irma’s story in the third chapter reminded me a lot of a story about a woman named Manuela (that’s her alias at least) in El Salvador who was sentenced to 20+ years in prison due to a pregnancy complication, which resulted in the loss of her unborn child. She was also a rural, low income, non educated woman who was berated at the hospital instead of assisted during her time of need. She later died of cancer in prison, in large part due to the lack of adequate medical care that she was provided. This left her two surviving children orphaned. Just like Irma, Manuela was simply the face of the movement- more than 150 women have been jailed and convicted of manslaughter in El Salvador due to unintentional or intentional loss of fetuses. Both of these stories make me wonder: will women’s health ever become a serious issue in developing countries? Although it’s a step in the right direction to have media coverage, it is also incredibly disheartening to read these tragic stories. It seems as if we are moving backwards- in the US our rights are under attack too.