First modification:
The regulations regulate access to this procedure in the event of rape, up to 12 weeks of pregnancy and up to 18 in the case of girls, indigenous people and women from rural areas. The measure passed amid widespread debate on the issue in the majority-conservative nation.
The norm was approved with 75 votes in favor, 41 against and 14 abstentions, after a ruling by the Constitutional Court that ordered the decriminalization and regulation of the voluntary interruption of pregnancy, provided that the surrogate mother had been the victim of rape.
Women who have become pregnant can interrupt their pregnancy up to 12 weeks and, exceptionally, up to 18 weeks in the case of girls, adolescents, and indigenous and rural women.
The measure must still have the approval of the Executive. The promulgation will remain in the hands of the president, Guillermo Lasso, who has a period of 30 days to publish the regulations in the official registry or to block them partially or completely. The president has said that he personally does not support abortion, but assured that he was in favor of regularization in some cases.
Affected women will not be required to report the rape, but must sign a consent form.
Physicians may object to performing the procedure on grounds of conscience.
Activists denounce short time frames
National press outlets highlighted the disagreements of pro-abortion activists, who denounced that the time limits are too restrictive and would force women to continue seeking illegal abortions, which are often fatal.
Outside the legislative chamber, Sarahi Maldonado, from the feminist collective Las Comadres, said that “the Assembly has once again failed girls, women, survivors and victims of sexual violence.” “They put up more barriers for girls to be forced to give birth and seek illegal abortions,” she added.
For their part, those who do not support the measure also demonstrated in front of the hemicycle. “Life cannot be negotiated,” stressed Paul García along with the anti-abortion groups. “They want to kill another victim inside the mother’s womb.”
To date, abortion in Ecuador is illegal except when the woman’s life is at risk or when the pregnancy is the product of rape of a woman with intellectual disabilities. The practice can be punished with between six months and two years in prison for women who submit to it and up to three years in prison for those who help perform unregulated abortions.
The approval of the measure this February 17 occurs in the midst of a broad debate on abortion in the country and after four modifications to the initial bill, which requested a margin of 28 weeks to interrupt pregnancy for women and an indefinite term for girls.
with EFE