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After raising prison sentences for women who abort on Tuesday night – which contradicts the recent trend in Latin America to expand access to voluntary interruption of pregnancy – the Guatemalan Congress named Guatemala as the “Pro-Life Capital of Ibero-America”. The legislators of the Central American country also approved measures against same-sex marriage, as well as the teaching of sexual diversity in schools.
A flagrant setback for human rights. This Wednesday, during an event in the Plaza de la Constitución and in the National Palace of Culture (headquarters of the Government), Guatemala was proclaimed as the “Ibero-American Pro-Life Capital”.
“What would happen if we joined together? Today this event is an invitation to join us in protecting life from conception to natural death in its five stages”, assured the Guatemalan right-wing president, Alejandro Giammattei, during his speech at the event.
A reactionary law against abortion and the rights of the LGBTIQ+ community
While some Latin American countries such as Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia have expanded access to abortion over the past two years, conservative trends continue to hold sway in other nations in the region.
On Tuesday – as the world commemorated International Women’s Day – the Guatemalan Congress overwhelmingly approved a controversial law dubbed “Protection of Life and Family,” which also targets the LGBTIQ+ community.
A greeting to the diverse families, in the framework of the day of life and the family approved on March 8 by @CongresoGuate in Law 5272, which marks a serious setback in terms of #Human rights. All families are different and important, and have equal rights pic.twitter.com/nYGFlu6gtN
– Jordan Rhodes Andrade (@JordanRodas) March 9, 2022
Guatemalan women convicted of interrupting their pregnancy can now face sentences of up to 10 years in prison, when previously, the sentences were a maximum of three years.
Congress has imposed even harsher penalties for doctors and others who help women end unwanted pregnancies. Abortion will only remain legal when the life of the mother is in danger.
The legislation was passed with 101 upvotes and eight againstwhile 51 legislators were not present.
A measure against regional trends
Colombia expanded access to abortion last month when the Constitutional Court voted to legalize the voluntary termination of pregnancy up to the 24th week of gestation.
In September, the Mexican Supreme Court ruled that abortion was not a crime and that it would be unconstitutional to punish it.
“The approval of the aforementioned law represents a very serious setback for Guatemala as a country, at a time when many nations of the world are taking significant steps to overcome misogyny as a cultural expression of societies.”
I read the statement @centrocivitas 👇 pic.twitter.com/Wx8GbwKjH1
– laCuerda (@laCuerda2) March 9, 2022
And in January of last year, a law came into force in Argentina that allows abortion up to the 14th week of pregnancy and beyond in cases of rape or risk to the woman’s health.
But in Guatemala, lawmakers who backed the legislation argued that the law was necessary because “minority groups in society propose ways of thinking and practices that are inconsistent with Christian morality.”
The LGBTIQ+ community is also affected
New Guatemalan law explicitly prohibits same-sex marriage.
The law also prohibits teaching children and young people about sexual diversity and gender ideology, and specifies that orientations other than heterosexuality are not “normal.”
Speaking to France 24, Lesly Guerrero, legal advisor to the Unit for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders in Guatemala, pointed out that, from now on, “public or private education will have to be governed by criteria for the promotion of heterosexual values. , which goes against the Constitution that promotes human rights as part of education”.
Legislator Armando Castillo, an ally of the Giammattei administration, defended the legislation, saying all it does is protect “straight people who have no interest in diversity.”
But the opposition deputy Lucrecia Hernández warned that this “law stigmatizes people, discriminates and encourages intolerance and hate speech and crimes.”
In the opinion of Pérez Álvarez, a deputy from the center-left Semilla party, the legislators who approved the regulation are “making Guatemala a global and regional shame by saying that they defend life and the family, while what they did yesterday was pass a law to kill and imprison women.
Álvarez added that if the Giammattei government was really interested in the population “it would fight corruption and solve everyday problems” such as “unemployment, lack of income, medicine and fuel prices.”
AP, Efe