Colombia: Constitutional Court said “no” to limit abortion

The three existing grounds for exercising the right of women to voluntarily interrupt their pregnancy were ratified

After a woman with 26 weeks of pregnancy filed a guardianship action for her EPS to perform an abortion due to malformation of the fetus, Judge Cristina Pardo Schlesinger, who had knowledge of the case, decided to present a paper in which she asked to limit abortion until 24 weeks of pregnancy. Taking IGNORE INTO account the three reasons that are established to practice abortion in Colombia: malformation of the fetus, risk in the life of the mother or if the pregnancy is the product of a violation, as reported by RCN Radio.

Leer en español: Colombia: Corte Constitucional dijo "no" a limitar el aborto

According to the magistrate, once the 24th week of pregnancy was completed, the fetus achieves its autonomous viability, so that if a woman argued that she would abort due to malformation of the fetus, she would have to show that the baby, due to its conditions, could not survive

The fact provoked the reaction of some organizations, such as Amnesty International, an organization that told El Espectador that "if measures are created that further restrict the right to legal interruption of pregnancy in Colombia, human rights and principles of rights would be violated and would be contrary to international and regional obligations contracted by the country. "

"The Colombian State should not impose any restriction on abortion that unreasonably interferes with women's exercise of their human rights," Human Rights Watch told the aforementioned media.

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Colombia told him not to limit abortion

Taking IGNORE INTO account the previous context, the Constitutional Court decided to reject the magistrate's proposal to reform to limit abortion. The high court argued that, in cases of abortion, women should abide by the three existing causes mentioned above. The ruling came with three votes in favor and six against, giving a victory to the sectors that claimed to eliminate any obstacle to abortion, says El País de España.

If a doctor determines that the woman meets any of the three conditions mentioned and authorizes, then the abortion may be performed. This right is legal since 2006. Data revealed by the Spanish newspaper say that in 2017 there were 10,517 abortions, many more than in 2016 when 6,500 were practiced.

"The doctors are the ones to decide on these causes and the Court urged the Congress of the Republic to exercise its freedom of legislative configuration in the matter of abortion and in particular, if it considers it, to regulate the issue of the terms, for the time being, the Court remains in its decision ," El Heraldo told the newspaper the president of the Constitutional Court, Judge Alejandro Linares.

For her part, the magistrate, rapporteur of the bill to limit abortion, told El Espectador about the decision of the Constitutional Court, "which is a bad message that we send to our Colombian population in a condition of disability. that their life is not a life that deserves respect, that the life of a disabled person does not deserve to be lived and that they could not have the right to be born, I believe it is a message that the Court should not have sent."

Although the Constitutional Court voted in favor of women in not limiting at the time of abortion, for the magistrate, José Fernando Reyes Cuartas, there are currently barriers for women to use their right to voluntarily interrupt their pregnancy, leading them to "go to the guardianship action to ensure that their right to due care is guaranteed with irreversible consequences that force them to practice improperly with serious danger to their health, "he told the newspaper of Barranquilla.

Despite the fact that the Constitutional Court voted in favor of not limiting abortion, it left the door open to the legislature to make future changes or regulations to terminate the pregnancy. In conclusion, what happened left women winners, but opened the debate in Colombian society of whether abortion should have limits.  

LatinAmerican Post | Edwin Guerrero Nova

Translated from: 'Colombia: Corte Constitucional dijo no a limitar el aborto'

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