But Cristina de la Sotta, executive director of the Fundación Chile Unido (United Chile Foundation), an independent private organisation that supports women with unwanted pregnancies or who have had an abortion and regret it, told another story.

The women who come to the Foundation for help were unable to get over the impact of having an abortion, de la Sotta told IPS.

They tell us the abortion was a solution, but a bad one, she said. With the Foundation s support, many pregnant women decide not to terminate their pregnancies, because they discover that the feelings behind maternity and motherhood run deep, she added.

Nevertheless, she believes abortion should not be a crime for the woman involved, because she is a victim of circumstance, rather than a perpetrator, harbourer or accomplice, and needs support.

The decision to have an abortion is not easy for anyone, said de la Sotta.

I was 14, in the first year of middle school, and had a boyfriend who was my first sexual partner, Tamara Vidaurrázaga told IPS, describing her first pregnancy, which occurred nearly two decades ago.

When her parents found out, they decided that she had to abort. I wasn t thinking clearly, I was really scared, she said. But she clarified that she never felt pressured by her parents. On the contrary, she is tremendously grateful for the support they gave her.

I didn t have any doubts. My family isn t religious, and I have never felt that Catholic sense of guilt or the belief that I should sacrifice my life because there is a god that wants that, she said.

The procedure, carried out at the eighth week of pregnancy by a gynecologist the family knew, cost 500,000 pesos (equivalent to around 870 dollars at the time), she said.

The clandestine nature of the whole process is what makes abortions so unpleasant, not the decision itself, said Vidaurrázaga, who has a daughter who was wanted and hoped for, who I adore and who is the centre of my life today.

The timid electoral debate on therapeutic abortion that is emerging in Chile involves politicians, doctors, and religious leaders, most of whom are men, and is limited to cases of women at risk of losing their life for example, cases of ectopic pregnancies (when the baby develops outside of the uterus).

Surveys show that a majority of Chileans believe therapeutic abortion should be legal when the mother s life is at risk, the pregnancy is the result of rape, or the foetus is severely malformed.

The other reasons that women cite for having abortions have been ignored.

The debate has been mediocre, short-sighted and small-minded, said Maira.

WHO BENEFITS FROM THEIR PAIN?

Midwife Pamela Eguiguren, who holds a master s degree in public health and is a researcher at the University of Chile School of Public Health, recently completed a study on pregnancies involving foetal anomalies that are incompatible with life outside the womb, like anencephaly (a condition in which most of the foetus s brain and parts of the skull are missing). The study was carried out jointly with two women s organisations.

We ran across extremely painful experiences, with a health system that reacts in a very slow, clumsy manner, because there are no protocols for these cases. The care that is received depends on the sensitivity of the doctor, Eguiguren told IPS.

The nightmare that these women go through starts when the foetus is first diagnosed as anencephalic. Instead of enthusiastically shopping for baby clothes and furniture, they have to arrange for a spot in the cemetery because they have no choice but to carry the pregnancy to term, she said. Many fall into depression or develop other psychological problems. Some decide never to get pregnant again.

In the end, some try to draw some meaning from the process and salvage some positive aspect that might help justify so much suffering, said Eguiguren. For example, they say it was good to be able to hold their babies before they died, which generally occurs shortly after birth.

There are many women who have had an abortion and were not marked by it. But going through an entire pregnancy carrying a foetus that is incompatible with life outside the womb that is something you remember forever, she said.

It is legitimate for some women not to choose to abort in these cases, she said. But to me it seems like torture to force someone to carry the child, when they don t want to go through with it. You wonder who gets anything out of their suffering. And who is there to give them support? Who is there to give them economic assistance?

Maira is convinced that if Chile does not make an effort to be a better informed society, more open-minded and with more sex education and more widely available birth control, the number of abortions will not go down.

We need public debate, in which women do not have to feel guilty or stigmatised for speaking up, she said. Women s voices are not respected today. Whatever we say, we don t exist.