After 28 years of prohibition, the Constitutional Court of Chile validated, Monday, August 21, a law partially decriminalizing therapeutic abortion. THE’Abortion is now authorized when the mother’s life is in danger, when a fetus is not viable and when a pregnancy results from rape. In this Latin American country, the ex-dictator Pinochet had banned abortion in 1989 although previously, therapeutic abortion was authorized in cases where the life of the mother or that of the child was in jeopardy. game for almost 60 years.
18 countries still ban abortion
This decision, already approved by Parliament, was taken after two and a half years of debates on the subject. The appeals filed by the right were thus rejected “by six votes against four, on the subject of the three causes oftermination of pregnancy“, said Rodrigo Pica, Secretary General of the Constitutional Court, during a press conference. A victory for the associations which fought to obtain this right, but also for the Socialist President of Chile Michelle Bachelet, who has always defended this project. “Today, we women conquer new spaces of dignity, freedom, autonomy and equality,” she said in a statement.
Until now, Chile was part of the list of 19 countries totally banning abortion, in which we find in particular Haiti, the Congo or the Vatican, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
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