The National Assembly needs an absolute majority to pass the bill that guarantees the voluntary termination of pregnancy due to rape.
Next Tuesday, January 25, the plenary session of the National Assembly is convened to process the second and final debate on the bill that guarantees the voluntary interruption of pregnancy for girls, adolescents and women in the event of rape.
In the midst of controversy, lack of consensus within the benches and with criteria for and against the content of the report prepared by the Justice Commission, the debate will start at 09:30.
This project came up for discussion in the Assembly after the ruling of the Constitutional Court of April 2019 that decriminalized abortion for rape for girls, adolescents, women and pregnant people.
In the last weeks of debate, the temporality on the interruption of pregnancy surpassed two other critical knots of the project related to the requirements and conscientious objection.
Initially, the Justice table resolved with six votes in favor that the interruption of pregnancy due to rape in women over 18 years of age could take place up to seven months of gestation, while for girls and adolescents no deadlines were established, as well as for the cases of women with disabilities.
That decision received harsh political and social criticism. Five days later, the Commission reconsidered the text and established a term of 20 weeks of gestation for women over 18 years of age, and 22 weeks for girls and adolescent victims of rape; while for women with disabilities, the provisions of the Clinical Practice Guide called Therapeutic Abortion Care will be observed.
Having reduced the interruption of pregnancy due to rape to twenty weeks of gestation does not guarantee votes in the plenary session of the Assembly
Both the feminist and pro-life sectors announce sit-ins at the national level for the day the National Assembly is installed to debate the bill on abortion for rape. Both groups are preparing campaigns on social networks and also began political approaches with a view to obtaining enough votes in favor of their theses.
José Ignacio Gómez, spokesman for the pro-life Tradition and Action Ecuador group, said that they remain firm against the report presented by the Justice Commission, abortion is not viable in Ecuador, because in his opinion, the Constitutional Court ruling violated the Constitution in its article 45 that protects life from conception.
He questioned that the legislative table had initially included a period of seven months of gestation for an abortion due to rape and that it had later reduced the temporality.
However, he indicated that if the Assembly by order of the Constitutional Court must approve a bill, they should go for texts that less affect or violate the rights of the child in the womb.
Gómez hopes to gather in the vicinity of Parliament next Tuesday, despite the fact that the plenary sessions of the National Assembly will continue to be virtual to avoid contagion with COVID-19. The sit-ins will be in the vicinity of the Assembly and at the national level in opposition to the approval of the project that threatens life from conception.
Silvia Buendía, an activist for the human rights of women and a lawyer on gender issues, said that she is concerned about how the project is conceived, because in the Constitutional Court ruling it is said that the deadlines must be objective and technical to guarantee access to health in the area of girls, adolescents, pregnant women who have been raped and have opted for an abortion.
The question is why the Justice Commission changed from 28 weeks and no term limit for girls, adolescents and women with disabilities to what it approved on Sunday, 22 weeks for girls and adolescents and 20 weeks for women over 18 years of age. .
What is the criterion that prevailed to generate the change, the pressure that is carried out, because in the sentence the Court warns them that they must comply with their legislative responsibility, since this is not a matter of religion or criminal law, but of health. “I am very afraid that this change was due to social and political pressure, and many assembly members do not read or do not understand the ruling of the Constitutional Court,” the activist stressed. (I)
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