Interrupción voluntaria del embarazo: percepciones en estudiantes de la carrera de Medicina de la Universidad de Cuenca. Período marzo-agosto 2020

Abstract

Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy, in contexts of criminalization represents a risk to women's lives in Ecuador, if it is not proven that pregnancy is product of rape, it is not possible to access health services to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy, so that punishability does not dissuade women to not abort, on the contrary, it forces them to do at home or clandestine, illegal places or unsanitary places. Health workers, is an important sector to study in relation to the exercise of women's reproductive rights, since in their professional practice they encounter cases of Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy, so it is necessary to establish a correlation with what the future doctors from the University of Cuenca state in their discourses on maternity and paternity, linking it with their religious-catholic beliefs, that represent a notorious influence in relation to the legal and social sanction of VIP. The lack of knowledge in relation to reproductive rights, as well as the normative framework around the use of conscientious objection and the care of obstetric emergencies, and the reproduction of gender stereotypes in the discourse on maternity and paternity by health workers, represent an obstacle to the exercise of autonomy of women's bodies.