Womens eNews: Chile Birth-Control Case Spurs ‘Apostasy’ Planning, by Matt Malinowsky:
Chilean judges, siding with the Vatican, have dealt a major blow tothe Bachelet government by ending free emergency contraception inpublic clinics. A women’s rights group is organizing a massrenunciation of Catholicism to express their outrage.
SANTIAGO, Chile (WOMENSENEWS)–Hundreds of Chileans are planning torenounce their membership in the Roman Catholic Church on April 29 asan outcry against a major blow to the government’s push for expandedaccess to contraception.
On April 18 Chile’s Constitutional Court outlawed distribution ofemergency contraception in public health clinics to women 14 and older,a policy implemented in September 2006 by the government of PresidentMichelle Bachelet to lower teen pregnancy rates in a country where 15percent of births are to women 18 or younger. Emergency contraceptionremains available in the nation’s private pharmacies.