Cuba expands of women
2014Ann Montague 2014-12Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 11 →
The words are the paper's own, from its digital file; the division into articles was made by machine, so a box or caption can end up inside the article next to it.
Scan page 11
SOCIALIST ACTION DECEMBER 2014 11 Abortion has been legal in Cuba since the victory of the Cuban rev olution in 1959 and was codified into law as a women’s “sovereign right” in 1968.
Vilma Espin, a feminist and rev olutionary fighter, was made the head of the new Federation of Cu ban Women and later created the National Center For Sex Educa tion, now headed by her daughter Mariela Castro Espin. As a result of Espin’s role in the revolution and heading an organization of over three million Cuban wom en, women’s reproductive rights were always on the agenda. Not only was abortion legalized; all women have access to free con traception.
Cuba is now launching a new campaign to address the low birth rate, which is due to the choices Cuban women have been making for decades.
Most women in Cuba today only have only one child. Luis Ernesto Formoso, director of the Obstet rics and Gynecology Hospital in Havana, explains it this way: “In health matters we behave like the developed world, and now wom en only start to think about having children once they’re established in their careers. For instance, my grandmother had 16 children; my mother, four; and I have only one child.”
The assistant director of the hospital’s nursing unit, Caridad Fuentes, points out that these changes are in a country where, “we have a public health system that provides free medical care for all women throughout preg nancy and childbirth. The number racist “Stop and Frisk” or the “Stand your ground” law in Florida, coast to coast it’s all the same. A study by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, con ducted after Trayvon Martin’s death in Florida in 2012, found that a Black per son is killed once every 28 hours by a cop, security guard, or vigilante.
In this era of economic crisis, the capitalist state is tightening its noose on democratic rights. The Edward Snowden and Wikileaks revelations brought that home to hundreds of mil lions worldwide. First in its sights will be the oppressed communities.
In the capitalist courts, the game is rigged against the working class and in favor of cops. To prove a civil rights vio lation, you have to prove beyond a rea sonable doubt that a cop did so “will fully.” Even murkier Missouri law adds that cops can use deadly force if they of teenage pregnancies has also been cut thanks to the ‘arsenal of information’ that teenagers re ceive and their use of safe birthcontrol methods. And our infant mortality rate is lower than the United States.”
In most countries around the world women are fighting for re productive rights, which means the right to abortion and access to birth control. In Cuba they are in creasing services for women who want to have children but have been unable due to infertility.
Cuba’s Council Of Ministers an nounced recently that they have increased fully paid maternity and paternity leave to one year. There are also plans to expand day-care facilities, as 53% of mothers with children four or younger work.
The big announcement was that Cuba would be opening special centers for infertile couples in each of the country’s 168 munici palities. The government says it treated 3000 couples for infertility in 2010, and more than doubled that number in the following three years. The country has also tripled the number of special reproduc tive technology centers, to three, and there have been 500 births by artificial insemination. They are also increasing the special ma ternity units where women with high-risk pregnancies can stay full-time.
Dr. Bartolome Arce, chief of En docrinology and Assisted Repro duction Services, pointed out that the cost of invitro fertilization in most other countries—for ex ample, the United States—is more than $10,000.
While there are increased op tions for women who want to have more children, Cuban women who choose not to have children will still have that option. Cuba’s Na tional Office of Information and Statistics reports that 80% of the population use contraception. n “reasonably believe” that the per son to be arrested has committed or “attempted” to commit a felo ny, or is attempting to escape by use of a deadly weapon, or “may otherwise endanger life” or in flict “physical injury” unless ar rested without delay. Essentially, the high bar set by the law gives cops, especially in Missouri, free rein to kill.
In 2013, the FBI tallied 461 “jus tifiable homicides” committed by law-enforcement authorities in the United States. This was the highest number in two decades, even as the overall homicide rate continues to drop. A USA To day analysis of the FBI database over seven years found an aver age of about 96 homicides a year in which a white officer killed a Black person.
On Nov. 20, yet another Afri can American, Akai Gurley, 28, was shot dead by one of two cops in an un lit Brooklyn stairwell. The NYPD said it was an “accident” and admitted that Gurley was completely “innocent.” Gur ley was in the stairwell with his girl friend because of a faulty elevator.
What must be done? Ultimately, to multiply our forces, we need to build a mass united national front of all prin cipled organizations that oppose police brutality and racial profiling. Jail for Darren Wilson and all killer cops! Cops out of all Black communities!”
There can be no solution to police bru tality with the two parties of the 1%. We say organize, mobilize, and stay in the streets! Socialists blame the capi talist system of greed for racism, police brutality, poverty, unemployment, and war. We need a revolution! n