Running the Obstacle Course to Sexual and Reproductive Health Lessons from Latin America

Subjects:

• Health/Medicine » Health/Medicine (General)
• Women's Studies » Women's Health

Reviews:

• For close to 30 years, Shepard worked for the Ford Foundation and other funding agencies supervising Latin American projects concerned with women's rights, population control, and reproductive health. Recently she took time off to evaluate the success of the various programs and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) with which she has had contact. The result is a series of case studies of projects, groups, and coalitions, primarily in Chile, Colombia, and Peru. In the strongest chapter, Shepard gives a nuanced yet admirably clear exposition of the Latin American/Roman Catholic tradition of "double discourse." Abortion is branded as unspeakable as well as illegal, so feminist NGOs are constrained from agitating for legalization, especially since their funding comes increasingly from their governments. Yet except for periodic crackdowns, clandestine abortion clinics function more or less with impunity, at least in affluent neighborhoods. The result is safe access to abortion for privileged women, but dangerous conditions for the poor. This is not a book for those not already conversant in the terminology of NGOs and feminist health rights activism and familiar with the alphabet soup of UN declarations and international funding agencies. For specialists, however, the book is engrossing and thought-provoking. Recommended. Faculty and professionals.
  —Choice April 2007
• This book provides excellent insight into the issues of sexual and reproductive health in Latin America....The author is to be commended for conducting such a thorough analysis of the mechanisms at play when individuals, organizations, and government agencies implement and evaluate health-promotion programming.
  —American Journal of Evaluation 2007
• After 25 years of program work and assessment in Latin America, Shepard brings together four studies of challenges to reproductive and sexual health advocacy in the region. While each study is certainly rich enough to stand alone, taken together, they cover the complex interplay of the actors and institutions promoting and resisting women's health and rights across Latin America.
  —Conscience Spring 2007
• [L]atin America's experience provides unique raw material for understanding the pursuit of sexual and reproductive health worldwide....[c]ontributes to the discussion with a sober, meticulous and fully grounded analysis.
  —ReVista Harvard Review of Latin America Fall 2006

Table of Contents:

• Preface
• Introduction
• The "Double Discourse" on Sexual and Reproductive Rights: The Chasm between Public Policy and Private Actions
• NGO Advocacy Networks in Latin America: Lessons from Experience in Promoting Women's and Reproductive Rights
• "Let's Be Citizens, Not Patients!": Promoting Partnerships between Women's Groups and Health Services in Peru
• Conversations and Controversies: A Sexuality Education Program in Chile
• Crosscutting Issues
• Bibliography