Reimagining Governance: The Visionary Potential of Chile’s Rewritten Constitution

Reimagining Governance: The Visionary Potential of Chile’s Rewritten Constitution

By Co-Editor Varsha Vijayakumar. This coming Sunday, September 4, every Chilean citizen above the age of eighteen will vote to “approve” or “reject” a brand-new national constitution.  Chile’s existing constitution was established during the brutal dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, which lasted from 1973 to 1990. On September 11, 1973, the military general led a U.S.-backed coup d’etat that ousted Salvador Allende, the first Marxist in the world to have been democratically-elected to power. Today, the histories and lives of the murdered and disappeared are intentionally documented by organizations such as the Museum of Memory & Human Rights in Chile’s capital city.*  A national plebiscite is nothing new in Chile. In fact, the formal end of Pinochet’s dictatorship was brought about by a 1988 referendum in which 56% of Chileans voted “no” on the question of extending his regime. Critics have long argued that the current constitution prioritizes the neoliberal economic model that was established under Pinochet’s rule and generally enshrines the stark inequalities of...
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The Consequences of Texas SB8: It May Become Impossible to Get an Abortion in Large Parts of the US

By Staff Writer Susanne Prochazka. The ripple effect of the Texas abortion ban, SB 8, has already impacted reproductive rights across the United States. As early as September 2021, following SB 8 taking effect, states neighboring Texas experienced an influx of patients seeking abortion care and related reproductive health care. States as far away as Illinois and New York reported an increase in patients from Texas scheduling abortion procedures, with Texans forced to travel hundreds or even thousands of miles for abortion access. Under SB 8, which effectively bans abortions as early as six weeks into the pregnancy, abortions in Texas have already fallen by almost 50%.  In the wake of Texas’ SB 8, a wave of equally restrictive abortion prohibitions has followed. 2022 is rapidly emerging as a devastating year for abortion rights and access, with more than 500 restrictions introduced nationwide since the start of state legislative sessions in January 2022.   Notably, three states have enacted bans as strict as Texas’...
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Examining the Legal Implications and Ramifications of the New Bounty-Hunting Texas Abortion Law

Examining the Legal Implications and Ramifications of the New Bounty-Hunting Texas Abortion Law

By guest contributor Astha Bhattacharya*   Despite a new era of pro-choice feminism overtaking the globe, Texas has passed Senate Bill No. 8, instituting one of the world's most stringent abortion bans. The bill, dubbed the "fetal heartbeat bill," outlaws all abortions after the "first detectable heartbeat." In this piece, I'll take a two-pronged approach to the legislation. First, I'll go over the scientific and medical challenges that the law presents. Then I'll show how the law infringes on women and their globally recognized human and reproductive rights, primarily targeting certain groups of women. SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE Science can't say with certainty when an embryo becomes a "human being." Researchers have recognized up to five distinct developmental stages, any of which could be a viable starting place for human life. The fourth step, which is viability, is clearly ascertainable. The point at which a fetus can successfully survive outside of the uterus with medical assistance is known as viability. This is the stage that the...
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“Abort the Government”: Polish Citizens Challenge Poland’s Retreat to Autocracy

“Abort the Government”: Polish Citizens Challenge Poland’s Retreat to Autocracy

By Ali Cain, RightsViews staff writer and a graduate student in the European History, Politics, and Society  MA Program Over the last three weeks, Polish citizens have ignited the country’s biggest protests since the 1989 pro-democracy movement in response to the passing of a de facto abortion ban. Although Poland already had the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe, its highest court, the Constitutional Tribunal, concluded that performing abortions, even in situations where a baby would be born sick or disabled, violates the Constitution’s guarantee to the protection of life. This ruling poses immense infringements on women’s rights and pushes the country into deeper democratic backsliding.  Despite Polish President Andrzej Duda announcing that the ban would be delayed indefinitely, protests have developed into a larger retaliation against the ruling far-right Law and Justice Party (PiS). Since its rise to power in 2015, the Party maintains support by enflaming cultural tensions over LGBTQ+ rights, migration, and abortion. Prior to the Tribunal’s ruling, women...
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Criminalizing Abortion: A Threat to Women’s Rights and Lives

Criminalizing Abortion: A Threat to Women’s Rights and Lives

By Rowena Kosher, a blog writer for RightsViews and a student in the School of General Studies at Columbia University In November, the United States Congress heard a bill proposal that would amend the federal criminal code and ban abortions after 20 weeks of gestation. The "Heartbeat Protection Act of 2017," introduced by Steve King (R-Iowa), renewed conversations among human rights advocates about abortion and its criminalization that have been ongoing for decades both in the United States and around the world. There is no shortage of opinions when it comes to legislation involving a woman’s choice about her body in the face of an unwanted pregnancy. Globally, countries have enacted laws suppressing women’s voices, health, and dignity, stripping away their human right to control a pregnancy. Today, for example, the Brazilian Congress is in the middle of considerations to ban all forms of abortion. Nicaragua’s 2006 abortion ban has already put women in jail for terminating unwanted pregnancies. Countries from Europe to Africa to Latin...
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