Amid protests, the Assembly processes the bill that guarantees abortion in case of rape

Saplings, prayers, posters, flags, green and light blue scarves were the prelude to the first debate on the bill that guarantees the termination of pregnancy in the event of rape.

Sectors in favor and against this project reached the legislature on December 9, which was prepared by the Ombudsman’s Office by mandate of the Constitutional Court when in April of this year it determined that paragraph 2 of article 150 of the Code is unconstitutional. Organic Integral Penal (COIP), which criminalized abortion due to rape, because the interruption of pregnancy was only allowed in the case of women with mental disabilities who were victims of this crime.

The legislature installed session 749 before noon and before the report was read, it received representatives from 22 organizations and social groups involved with the issue. At the same time, these groups began conversations with legislators seeking support for their cause.

A little earlier, the Ombudsman’s Office issued a statement in which it urged the Assembly to comply with the Court’s mandate. And he reminded her that the sentence of that body has minimum parameters that it must comply with, among them that there is no need for a report of the crime of rape to be able to interrupt a pregnancy caused by it; take into account parameters of international human rights organizations; and to set the objective and technical limits within which the termination of pregnancy can be legally carried out.

National Assembly opens debate on the law that guarantees rape abortion

In the plenary session, José Ignacio Gómez, spokesman for the Ecuadorian Society Tradition and Action Pro-Cultura Occidental, presented 110,000 signatures in rejection of the decriminalization of abortion in case of rape, and questioned that the possibility of abortion for rape up to the ninth month of pregnancy.

Cristina Cachaguay, president of women for change, called for the approval of the law that guarantees the right of women to decide about their bodies, to access the right to interrupt their pregnancy in the event of rape in the health system services, and receive post-abortion care.

Regarding the times and terms that must be considered for the interruption of pregnancy due to rape, it is an issue that must be approached scientifically and realistically in accordance with the realities of Ecuador, but he insisted that there should not be a time limit and that the requirements to achieve this right must be minimal, and that conscientious objection cannot be an obstacle to accessing the right.

He commented that according to figures from health authorities, in the country eight out of ten pregnant adolescent women are the product of sexual violence; that in 2020, three thousand girls became pregnant as a result of sexual violence.

Roxana Arroyo, a consultant for UN Women, referred to international standards in the case of decriminalizing abortion for rape and commented that there is a profound mistake when it is said that international systems and United Nations resolutions do not contemplate this situation.

He said that the State has the responsibility to protect the reproductive health and reproductive rights of women; and all manipulation of the woman’s control of her own body and of reproduction, as well as the laws that criminalize abortion, go against the obligation.

Fray Julián Cruzalta, a Unesco professor, said that defending life is defending rights, life is faces, looks, people. “You must legislate by looking at the faces. Human rights have to guarantee that women themselves can decide with freedom of conscience, not guaranteeing that freedom to women is violence ”.

Ana Lucía Martínez, as a doctor, declares her conscientious objection to sexual violence, forcibly pregnant women, who, being girls, adolescents or women in vulnerable situations, must give birth to their rapists.

María Dolores Miño, specialist in human rights, commented that the approval of the law is necessary, and recalled that the legislature is responsible for establishing the regulatory framework on which the right to interrupt abortion due to rape will be exercised, taking into account that the Constitutional Court decriminalized abortion only in cases of rape.

He indicated that it is not a question of addressing the issue from a pathologization perspective, that it is not talking about a disease, but the fact that in the country 2,700 girls under fourteen years of age are victims of violation of their human rights and that the State it must fully repair them.

In the afternoon, until 5:00 p.m., the plenary session of the legislature continued reading the report approved by the Justice Commission of the National Assembly.

The most controversial issues within the project were the time in which abortion should be allowed and the parameters to exercise the right to conscientious objection. (I)