Women could exercise the free right to decide on their bodies with a law that covers them (decriminalization of abortion). There is controversy and debate.
Colombia News.
Although we know The Plenary Chamber of the Constitutional Court decriminalized the voluntary termination of pregnancy until the 24th week of gestation.
It does not mean that they should wait until that period of the pregnancy.
However, after 24 weeks, legal abortion will continue to be allowed only in cases of risk to life or health:
- Fetal malformations that endanger life; or when the pregnancy is the result of non-consensual rape, incest, or artificial insemination.
If it is not for one of those reasons, the punishment or penalty of women will remain in force.
Decriminalization details
Within this petition it is required: “That no service provider go to jail or initiate criminal proceedings against them for performing an abortion consented by a woman or for providing information.”
- That no woman go to jail or have criminal proceedings initiated against her for accessing her right to the IVE or live under that threat.
Also, avoid imposed motherhoods that strip women of their autonomy, control over their bodies, or give definition to their life project.
Approved the decriminalization of abortion in Colombia: Monday of a historic decision
In addition, legal procedures that ensure health and do not represent any risk to women will be carried out.
However, the feminist movement states that it is a struggle that continues and that they will not rest until the act of aborting is no longer called a crime.
Now, the health system in the country must adjust to this new decision.
controversy and positions
From citizens to political actors, artists and more have expressed their opinion for and against. The magistrates who voted in favor of legal abortion have already been denounced for “prevarication.”
From “we are free” to a “murderous” decision, the sentence of the Constitutional Court has been qualified.
The Catholic Church has spoken out against it, as well as political parties such as the Democratic Center and other more conservative ones. Pro-life groups and more radical sectors against the legalization of abortion.
This situation cannot turn into abortion in Colombia becoming a contraceptive mechanism. We must address this discussion in the body that truly competes, which is the Congress of the Republic. pic.twitter.com/Q2MEKlQUNM
– Ivan Duke ?? (@IvanDuque) February 22, 2022
TIME revealed that between 1998 and 2019 it opened more than 5,700 cases for the crime of abortion, sAccording to figures from the Prosecutor’s Office cited in the report Criminalization of Abortion in Colombia, of 2021.
The punishment is also in special systems such as the special indigenous jurisdiction.
For its part, the Colombian Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology (Fecolsog) estimates that “Each year in the country, 400,400 abortions are performed with unreliable methods.”
The crime of abortion has, in ordinary justice, a sentence of between 16 and 54 months in prison for the woman who causes her abortion, allows someone else to do it, or for whoever practices it.
The Ministry of Health and Social Protection “carries out actions in favor of compliance with Judgment C-355 and subsequent judgments, in order to guarantee the provision of the essential and legal public health service of voluntary interruption of pregnancy (IVE) in the permitted causes.
For you, for them, for all! The path has always been decriminalization
??????????????????????????????@CConstitucional #CourtAbortionYes #AbortionNow— PROFAMILY (@ProfamiliaCol) February 21, 2022
