Misinformation, guilt, imposed method… why access to abortion is unevenly ensured in Occitania

On the ground, disparities in access and support. – RICHARD DE HULLESSEN

In 2022, 21,451 voluntary terminations of pregnancies were carried out in Occitanie. With unequal access conditions for women, explains Marie-France Taurinya, secretary of the regional family planning federation, where she is in charge of access to abortion. ;nbsp;

And now ? "Women still have difficulty accessing abortion in Occitanie. Depending on whether you are in Aveyron or Lozère, it is not the same as in Toulouse or Montpellier" : this Monday, March 4, Marie-France Taurinya, secretary of the regional family planning federation, does not forget the information of the day, the historic inscription of the family planning ;IVG in the Constitution. 

But the elected official at Planning Occitanie has already moved on: "Our fight will now be to denounce inequalities, specifies the Catalan, which is finalizing a report on the subject for the year 2023, on the basis of exchanges with the local correspondents of the association, and testimonies received, every Wednesday, when she runs the free listening and orientation line where she is a listener: "Among the 18- 30 years old, abortion is the first request", she specifies.

"In Occitanie as in France, difficulties in accessing abortion persist: guilt-inducing receptions, unreachable IVG centers, misinformation, clause of conscience, imposed method…It is not because a law exists that it is applied", concludes the synthesis that' 39;was able to consult Midi Libre. " It makes you sterile", "it no longer takes effect after 48 hours"< /em>… the association "also signals a decline on the part of pharmacists to give emergency contraception to minors or young adults who request it, in the name of fallacious arguments.' nbsp;

"I live in the Pyrénées-Orientales, recalls Marie-France Taurinya in the preamble.< em>There is no problem in Perpignan, you can do an instrumental abortion at the hospital and in two clinics. But if you live in the hinterland… We have had a midwife for six months who has signed an agreement with the cross-border hospital of Cerdanya, in Puigcerdà, but he is prohibits medical abortions for minors on the grounds that Spanish law requires the presence of parents, while the Congress of Deputies modified the text in 2023. The establishment itself chose to only perform abortions medicinal products. Women can find themselves traveling 100 km to have their rights respected." 

"More and more women complain of not having a choice"

"In Aveyron, in Lozère, you also have to travel 100 km to do an instrumental abortion which requires a unit, staff… Some women, however, insist on it", continues Marie-France Taurina. "We suffer from medical deserts". "In our rural departments, a large number of women experience these social and territorial inequalities in access to abortion", states the report.< /p>

We also suffer from a reality on the ground where"Public hospitals do not perform abortions until 14 weeks of pregnancy", underlines the Planning report. "It's 12 weeks maximum in the hospitals of Milau and Rodez", assures Marie-France Taurinya, and "Aveyron is, with Hautes-Pyrénées, one of the two departments in the region which does not allow access to the method instrumental", writes the report.

One year after the two-week extension of the legal deadline for recourse to abortion, in 2022, "at the end of 2023, the departmental associations did not see any major developments, more and more women complain of not having the choice of method when they arrive at an IVG center and say they are subjected to pressure from the medical team" : "It's dangerous for your health", they are told. 

A toll-free number from Planning directs them to the most suitable reception, "sometimes very good, sometimes less friendly& quot;, within a reasonable time: "I can't do it", a young Montpellier woman worried last week "very anxious", who was asked to arrive at her first appointment with a blood test and an ultrasound, for an IVG scheduled on a tight schedule, before she joined the city ​​of his studies.

"I spent the morning calling the hospital who ended up referring me to Doctolib", was immediately alarmed by a Nîmes woman eager for anonymity, panicked at the idea of ​​transmitting her personal data on the site. 

"One in three women will resort to abortion in their life, but it remains a taboo subject"< /em>, emphasizes Marie-FranceTaurinya.