Abortion Rights Still Face Challenges in Several Latin American Countries.
| Autor | Conaway, Janelle |
Women's rights advocates marked a major victory this year when Chile rolled back its all-out ban on abortion (NotiSur, Sept. 15, 2017), but they have little to celebrate in the rest of the region.
In Brazil, women took to the streets by the thousands on Nov. 13 to protest a potential setback to their rights: A congressional committee had approved a proposed constitutional amendment that would make all abortions illegal. Brazilian law bans abortion, but allows three exceptions--when the pregnancy is the result of rape, when the mother's life is in danger, or if the fetus has anencephaly, this last exception adopted in response to the Zika crisis (NotiSur, Feb. 19, 2016, March 11, 2016, Aug. 5, 2016).
While news reports indicate that the measure, now before Congress, would have to overcome several hurdles to become law, some organizations have expressed concern.
"We want Congress to guarantee more rights, not to remove them," Jurema Werneck, Brazil director of Amnesty International, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
"It's a dangerous initiative," Diana Moreno, a legal fellow for Latin America and the Caribbean for the Center for Reproductive Rights, told the Latin America Digital Beat (LADB) in a telephone interview from the organization's regional office in Bogota. Even though rights groups would have grounds to challenge such a law in court, she said, its approval would send the wrong "symbolic" message.
With several governments taking a more conservative turn and religious "anti-rights" groups becoming more active on the legal front, Moreno said, the region is seeing more threats to sexual and reproductive rights.
"There's a political environment conducive to giving back the progress of the last two decades," she said.
That could conceivably include Chile. Although public opinion polls show strong support for the recently enacted law establishing exceptions to the abortion ban, former President Sebastian Pinera (2010-2014)--who won the first round of this year's presidential election on Nov. 19--has said that he would change the law if elected. The runoff election is scheduled for Dec. 17 (NotiSur, Dec. 1, 2017).
Abortion is a crime in most of the region--Uruguay and Cuba are among a handful of places where it's legal--but most countries allow it under specific circumstances. Six countries have absolute abortion bans: the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Suriname.
The issue was under debate in Honduras...
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