The rustic’s Constitutional Court docket dominated in want of legalizing abortion up till 24 weeks of a being pregnant, the splendid tribunal introduced in a remark.
Abortion rights advocates reacted on Monday with marches in Bogota, the capital, and different primary towns, having campaigned for twenty years to take away abortion from the rustic’s prison code.
“We knew this used to be no longer a very easy combat, however sooner or later it needed to occur,” mentioned Mariana Ardila, a girls’s rights activist and attorney who signed the petition to decriminalize abortion. “In fact, whilst we had been hoping for complete decriminalization, and we can stay preventing for it, that is a very powerful step ahead for us,” Ardila informed CNN, surrounded via girls’s rights activists outdoor the court docket on Monday night time.
Abortion in Colombia has most effective been criminal beneath 3 instances: when the existence or well being of the girl is in danger, if the fetus has malformations that make it nonviable or when the being pregnant is the results of rape or incest.
Now, girls in the hunt for an abortion as much as the twenty fourth week in their being pregnant won’t face prosecution, the court docket dominated. Abortion after 24 weeks stays unlawful, aside from if a type of 3 instances is provide.
Even girls who’re medically entitled to an abortion have confronted limitations to get entry to remedy in Colombia. Alejandra Gutierrez, a 23-year-old most cancers affected person from Bogota, informed CNN that her case needed to undergo a panel dialogue between a gynecologist, a hematologist, and a psychiatrist sooner than her request used to be licensed.
All through the method, she says she gained little transparent details about the dangers of terminating the being pregnant or sporting the newborn to time period amid chemotherapy remedy.
Simplest after 3 weeks and a large number of interviews used to be she allowed to finish the being pregnant. “I felt so prone, so small, and I nonetheless really feel I by no means actually were given to the ground of it. My concern used to be that it began to develop, inside of my abdominal, after which it used to be too past due, I used to be scared to demise.” she informed CNN in November.
Past the regulation, pregnant girls in Colombia have confronted bureaucratic delays, damaging attitudes and clinical personnel who refuse to hold out the process beneath a “conscientious objection” clause.
A regional reckoning
In September, Mexico’s Very best Court docket unanimously dominated that penalizing abortion is unconstitutional, a call anticipated to set precedent for the criminal standing of abortion national. And in December 2020, Argentina’s Senate voted to legalize abortion as much as 14 weeks right into a being pregnant, making the rustic the biggest country in Latin The us on the time to legalize the observe.
In Colombia, one girl informed CNN she used to be compelled to depart the rustic in 2017 to hunt an abortion after changing into pregnant on the age of 15. She asked that her identify be withheld because of the sensitivity and stigma of the problem there.
“I used to be actually scared, you input in a state of general panic when it occurs, how are you able to assume with readability about anything else in that state?” she mentioned. She used to be nonetheless in highschool on the time.
Alternatively, her mom agreed to assist her commute to Mexico Town, the place the observe used to be criminal lengthy sooner than it transform national regulation. “I used to be fortunate: my mom does no longer reinforce abortion and used to be very let down, however she nonetheless had my again. She had a excellent process on the time, so lets manage to pay for flying to Mexico and staying there for every week to do it. However many others can not do this,” she informed CNN.
“Everyone knows a girl who were given an abortion, it is simply that no one is aware of who she is. We do not speak about it as a result of it is nonetheless a taboo, beneath wraps, however everyone is aware of it,” she mentioned.
Social taboos and public shaming round the problem stay ongoing limitations to abortion training and get entry to, in keeping with abortion rights activists.
“This could also be about converting mentality,” mentioned Dr. Laura Gil, a gynecologist in Bogota who signed some of the petitions to Colombia’s Constitutional Court docket to switch the regulation. “We don’t seem to be looking to make other people alternate their opinion about abortion — that may be a query this is essential just for girls who’re dealing with an undesirable being pregnant.
“That is about other people figuring out that without reference to their opinion, abortion is a proper,” she mentioned.
