Juan Felipe Benítez Giraldo 201911620.

English 09 section 09
09/03/2020
Clandestine Abortions in Bogotá

Introduction

Since colonial times, Catholicism has influenced Colombia in many aspects as most of

Latin America countries. A result of that is that Colombians have an ethic based on

predestination. Usually there is the thought that everything is predestined by god. Nowadays this

ethic is rooted in political aspects like abortion. Pregnancy interruption in Colombia is partially

illegal in spite of the fact that Colombia is a laic country since 1991. Despite this feature in

Colombian’s constitution, pregnancy interruption is legal just in three cases because of the belief

that there is something predestined for the coming baby. It is a result of the influence of

Catholicism in Colombia over our ethic.

As consequence abortion restrictions, there are about 130.000 clandestine abortions in

Colombia (Prada et al., 2012). Clandestine abortion is a pregnancy ending process which is

carried out by non-professional people in an environment without minimal medical standards.

Each clandestine abortion could be so dangerous for the woman who is doing it. Due to these

kind of abortions, there are public resources wasted at taking care of complications in public

hospitals. Thus, Colombia is wasting resources inefficiently and that is a big economical

problem. (Prada et al., 2012) indicate that annually there are more than 97.000 complications in

Colombia. It results in many resources spent that could be used in thing more important for

Colombian population.

There is two ways for solving this economical problem. First, legalizing abortion in first 12

weeks will reduce extremely the number of clandestine abortions in Colombia. Then, with less

number of clandestine abortions in Colombia, there will be less public resources wasted in taking
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care complications. If government would legalize abortions, institutions as Profamilia and

Orientame must will be in charge of these processes. Thus, there will be a little percentage of

complications. Researches could agree with this solution. Some of them as (Prada et al., 2012) of

Guttmacher Institute highlight that less than 0.3% of the abortion process when are carried out by

specialists, ends in complications that may be treated in public hospitals. The second way for

solving this problem solution will have as an objective reduce abortions in general. It is possible

restructuring the way that sex educations is gave in schools in Colombia. Sex education being

more efficient could reduce the number of abortions exceptionally. This restructuration will be

mainly in Bogotá because there is the higher amount of clandestine abortions (Prada et al., 2012)

and like this government could supervise better this process. A consequence of that is that with

fewer abortions in general, there will be less public resources wasted on it.

Methodology

In order to find the causes of abortion and an acceptable way to reduce it, a survey were

made to 13 people of Bogotá. First, the survey was created in SurveyMonkey.com and eight

questions were consigned. Then, surveyed people were asked the following questions in order to

find out their basic features, such as: What their age range is, how many years ago did they

finished high school, and if they remember having sexual education at school. Moreover, last

five questions were answered on a scale 1 to 10, with 1 being that they do not agree and 10 that

they totally agree the sentence. Surveyed people were asked to rate: sex education obtained, how
Juan Felipe Benítez Giraldo 201911620. English 09 section 09
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laic were their classes, their thought about if laic sexual education could reduce number of

abortions, how efficient are sex education in Colombia and finally how much they agree with

changing and improving the way of teaching sexual education in Colombia.

Graph 1

Rate sexual educati on aspects

66.67%
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

40.00%

40.00%
33.33%
26.67%

26.67%

20%
13.33%
13.33%

13.33%
13.33%

13.33%
13.33%

13.33%
13%

13%
6.67%

6.67%
6.67%

6.67%

6.67%
6.67%

6.60%
7%
7%

7%

7%
0.00%

0.00%

0.00%

0.00%

0.00%
0.00%

0.00%

0.00%

0.00%

0.00%
0%

0%

0%
0%
0%
0%

0%
0%

0%
0%

0%
0%
L ev el o f H o w l ai c w as i t Th i n k t h at sex h o w e ffi c i e n t h a s 0%
How much do you
s a ti s f a c ti o n w i t h e d u c a ti o n c o u l d b een sex u al t h i n k t h at sex
s e x e d u c a ti o n r ed u c e n u m b er o f e d u c a ti o n e d u c a ti o n m u s t
o b t ai n ed a b o r ti o n s b e c h an ged

Graph 1 contains fifteen surveyed people’s perception of sex education in Colombia in five

different aspects. As can be seen in the graph, above 33% of surveyed do not remember having

sex education at school. Moreover, 40% surveyed people think that sex education could reduce
Juan Felipe Benítez Giraldo 201911620. English 09 section 09
09/03/2020
the number of abortions in Colombia. Likewise, the same percentage rated 1 of 10 points the

efficiency of Colombian sex education. Another big pattern is that more than 66% of surveyed

think that sex education must be changed in Colombia. In addition, by looking at the graph, there

appear to be steady changes in the pattern of the answers. Overall, can be inferred that

Colombian sex education has many shortcomings. Finally, if Colombian society want to reduce

abortions they must use new strategies for teaching sex education.

Results

By looking the results of the survey, we could consider that this pattern could be in

Colombians society. Then, sex education which is clearly influenced by religion is so inefficient.

In the survey, more than 80% of people believe that laic sex education could reduce abortions in

Colombia in some grade. Then, Religion is the cause of part of this inefficiency because. For

instance, professors that teach sex education usually have the thought that the best contraceptive

method is abstinence and they focus on it and teach that belief; they omit realities of young

Colombian people. A consequence of this kind of teaching is the inefficiency in Colombian sex

education. To conclude, solve this problem must have as an objective reduce the number of

complication caused for abortions in Colombia. Thus, reducing public resources wasted in taking

care of those complications. An acceptable and supported way to do it is legalizing pregnancy

interruption and giving restructured, laic and monitored by government sex education in

Colombia. Then, those resources will be spent in a more efficient way.

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References

Prada E, Biddlecom A y Singh S, Aborto inducido en Colombia: nuevas estimaciones y cambios de 1989 a

2008, Perspectivas Internacionales en Salud Sexual y Reproductiva, número especial de 2012

Prada, E., Singh, S., Remez, L., & Villarreal, C. (2012). Embarazo no deseado y aborto inducido en

Colombia. 40.

Appendix
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