Deputies Yovana Ahumada, Camila Flores, Catalina del Real, Carla Morales, Joanna Pérez and the Fën Foundation expressed the urgency of addressing the birth rate crisis facing the country.
Within the framework of International Fertility Care Month, deputies from different groups and the Chilean Society of Reproductive Medicine asked the authorities to implement solid programs for reproductive health and expand the coverage of fertility treatments in the health system.
In the instance, the parliamentarian Yovana Ahumada (IND) emphasized the urgency of addressing the current birth rate crisis facing the country, stating that “we need to support public policies from Congress, so that those 17% of people who suffer from infertility have the options, the guarantees and the State also the support. Here there is not only an issue of physical health or fertility, but there is also mental exhaustion that unfortunately parents who want to have children suffer during this entire process and for that, we in Parliament will also support this initiative”*.
In that same sense, the representative Camila Flores (RN), indicated that “we are calling for education, to raise awareness and make visible this issue that is so important. In our country, fewer children are born every day, the population is aging,” said the legislator. She also pointed out that “this is a very big issue because in a few more years, the infertility situation will affect one in three people in Chile.”
For his part, the Dr. Aníbal Scarella, president of the Chilean Society of Reproductive Medicine, emphasized the need for urgent measures to reverse the low birth rate. “Our country has a birth rate of 1.3 children per woman, when the population turnover rate stabilizes at 2. That is, we have a social problem, a political problem, a serious economic problem that we have to reverse,” he commented.
Dr. Scarella called on political authorities and civil society to take the problem seriously, stating that “we have a million people in our country who have infertility and who, for economic or access reasons, cannot access therapies.” reproductive that others can do. In this way, doing social justice, gender equality, we call on the authority to support the measures to reverse this trend that is so important for our country.
In the same line, Luz María Lira, executive director of the Fënn Foundation, pointed out that “every day we work to inform, to prevent and to accompany all those who live with infertility, a solitary disease about which there are many myths and from which we suffer much more than one thinks. This is a health problem, it is a rights problem and it is a social justice problem, we believe that it is important to treat it, prevent it and try to reverse it.”
For this reason, the parliamentary member of the Women, Equity and Gender Commission, Carla Morales, stressed that “reproductive health is a right that must be guaranteed in public health. “There are many women today who have to walk long distances to be able to be mothers, especially in the rural world where many do not have access to health care.”
While, the republican legislator, Catalina del Real, highlighted that “we are in Congress promoting public policies so that all Chileans can access treatments and become parents. “We have men and women who want to be parents and we are finally going to achieve it.”
The Chilean Society of Reproductive Medicine began the campaign #ELFUTUROESTAENTUSMANOS, which seeks to make this issue visible and raise awareness among the population.
