Reaction to the "anonymous" campaign to ban abortion
30/11/2007
By
PR Department of MASSO
During the past two weeks posters, flyers and other types of promotional materials have been circling around Skopje, which explicitly and crassly deny one of the basic human rights – the reproductive right of women. These materials which denote abortion as murder implicitly initiate and promote hate speech directed towards women who have had an abortion or who are planning to use their basic reproductive right.
The Macedonian Association for Free Sexual Orientation – MASSO together with the Coalition for promotion and protection of sexual and health rights of LGBT/MSM and sex workers, most sternly reacted to this perfidious campaign in which we see nothing else but a retrograde move which aims to bring back democracy in Macedonia as well as the global democracy in an age (well beyond 1948) when human rights and the rights of women were decided upon by the laws of force, violence, war, patriarchal dominance and militarism.
Abortion as a woman’s human right to decide when, where, how and whether she will form a family, represents the basic step towards women’s emancipation and their struggle and right for the own proper bodily, sexual and health autonomy.
On a global level today 19 million women are still victims of unsecured and illegally performed abortions. Of these 5 million are adolescents. The facts, statistics and experience show that banning abortion does not result in fruitful results on any level. On the contrary, what it bears witness to are staggeringly high rates of deaths of women and physical scars which etch themselves are permanent trauma for the lives of millions of women.
We believe that it is equally illegitimate to once again raise the issue of abortion as well the issue of the right to life, the issue of bodily integrity, the issue of the right to choose, the issue of human freedom and finally the issue of human rights.
Based on this MASSO called on all legitimate state institutions, commissions on gender equality and equal possibilities and all NGOs and individuals who fully believe in human rights and liberties to publicly distance themselves from this campaign and condemn it.
The Macedonian Association for Free Sexual Orientation – MASSO together with the Coalition for promotion and protection of sexual and health rights of LGBT/MSM and sex workers, most sternly reacted to this perfidious campaign in which we see nothing else but a retrograde move which aims to bring back democracy in Macedonia as well as the global democracy in an age (well beyond 1948) when human rights and the rights of women were decided upon by the laws of force, violence, war, patriarchal dominance and militarism.
Abortion as a woman’s human right to decide when, where, how and whether she will form a family, represents the basic step towards women’s emancipation and their struggle and right for the own proper bodily, sexual and health autonomy.
On a global level today 19 million women are still victims of unsecured and illegally performed abortions. Of these 5 million are adolescents. The facts, statistics and experience show that banning abortion does not result in fruitful results on any level. On the contrary, what it bears witness to are staggeringly high rates of deaths of women and physical scars which etch themselves are permanent trauma for the lives of millions of women.
We believe that it is equally illegitimate to once again raise the issue of abortion as well the issue of the right to life, the issue of bodily integrity, the issue of the right to choose, the issue of human freedom and finally the issue of human rights.
Based on this MASSO called on all legitimate state institutions, commissions on gender equality and equal possibilities and all NGOs and individuals who fully believe in human rights and liberties to publicly distance themselves from this campaign and condemn it.
