Revolutionary Health in Egypt and Tunisia

Reporting for my new article over at AlterNet had me stumbling on more than a few surprises and plenty of fascinating conversations. Here is the opening:

It is unsettling, but true: the autocratic regimes of Tunisia and Egypt, now overthrown by democratic revolutions, had, in fact, carried forward what are among the most progressive reproductive rights policies in the region.

While the idea of offering any public funds at all to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America incites debate in the current U.S. legislature, both Tunisia and Egypt have government-sponsored programs that for decades have offered free or nearly free contraception to citizens—not just condoms, but intra-uterine devices (IUDs) and birth control pills.

Tunisia, which legalized abortion five years before the U.S, also has freely available morning-after pills, Pap smears, and breast exams at both local and mobile clinics. Both North African nations can boast of robust publicly supported education programs in sexual health for adults and youth. Both nations were among the first to sign CEDAW (the treaty of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women) back in 1980; Egypt ratified the declaration a year later and Tunisia, with a few reservations, in 1985. (The U.S. is one of seven nations that have not ratified CEDAW.) ...

Particularly as the U.S. grapples with the intersection of government and reproductive health, it is worth asking the question: how did the dictatorial regimes of Tunisia and Egypt make such advances with family planning--and what were the limits of such care under authoritarian and corrupt governments? What might the rest of the world learn from what these North African nations have and have not accomplished with reproductive rights – and where they might move forward under revolutionized government?

Comments

[Anna_L_S]

Anna, great story. My first internship out of college, in 2004 (height of Bush years) was in Tunis with International Planned Parenthood Federation's Arab World Regional Office. I was also surprised to see that abortion was more readily available there than in the US. However, a few things should be noted:

1- I visited a few medical facilities and clinics and most lacked soap in the bathrooms, and I was allowed to sit in on visits because the nurses didn't know what to do with me, which I think is medically/ethically probably not legit.

2- As you noted in your story, just because a country pushes contraception, does not mean they protect women's rights. Tunisia was still rife with sexual harassment, as is/was Egypt, and also, as you can imagine, fertility/demography is often just another way of asserting control over the female body. So in Iran, you also have a lot of modern contraception use, but before that became a gov't policy, the gov't policy was to produce lots and lots of Iranian martyrs to die in the war with Iraq. So women's bodies were instrumentalized until it became clear that it was impossible to keep that birthrate up and not have the country go totally broke. Similar back and forth story in Iraq.

[Anna clark]

Anna, thank you for sharing all this -- both the context, and the really important point about the changing faces of the state asserting control. You may likely have gotten to this already, but have you read "The Means of Reproduction" by Michelle Goldberg? I feel like I want to jam it in the hands of anyone who thinks these reproductive health matters are just a niche issue ....

[Arabic Language Learner]

I am glad to see that Egypt is doing well, Great article

I wish you all the best -Syed-