Chile’s Lower House rejects decriminalizing abortion and shelves the project

The Chilean Chamber of Deputies rejected on Tuesday a bill that sought to decriminalize abortion until the 14th week of gestation, an initiative that will be shelved, thus removing one of the main wishes of the feminist collective in the country.

After a heated debate and an even vote, the deputies determined by 65 votes against, 62 in favor and one abstention Failure to continue with the processing of this law, which according to the regulations, may not be presented again for another year.

In the South American country, it is only legal to abort in the event of fetal infeasibility, risk of death of the mother or in pregnancies resulting from rape, thanks to an initiative approved in 2017 during the second term of the socialist Michelle Bachelet (2014-2018) .

The rejection, which does not rule out the possibility of entering a similar project in the short term, sparked numerous criticisms from the opposition and feminist groups.

“We will lose as many times as it takes to win a free, legal and free abortion. I do not know when we will present it again (the project) but I promise you that we will do it until the end”, Sentenced the left-wing deputy Maite Orsini, one of the promoters of the norm.

“Abortion exists, it is a reality, but there are still many who prefer to hide it and condemn those who make that difficult decision”, He added for his part Marisela Santibanez, parliamentarian of Communist Party.

“The right to decide”

The rejection of this project, which sought to decriminalize the interruption of pregnancy until the 14th week of gestation, but not guarantee it as a free and free right, was celebrated in the meantime, by the most conservative sectors.

“The woman has the right to her body, but the unborn child is not part of her body (…) Not because crimes are committed abroad, I want them to be committed in Chile”, Expressed during the debate the right-wing Diego Schalper, from National Renewal.

Last January, the approval of free abortion in Argentina drove in Chile the parliamentary discussion of this project, which a group of opposition deputies had presented in 2018.

The Corporation for Sexual and Reproductive Rights (Miles), one of the most important platforms in defense of women, regretted the rejection through Twitter and stated that “the path is not criminalization, but rather the recognition of the right to decide whether to abort or not”.

From the feminist movement, they denounce that many Chilean women who meet the three conditions still find it difficult to interrupt their pregnancy due to conscientious objections filed by clinics and specialists to practice it.

Since its absolute prohibition, which was decreed at the end of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), and until 2017, some 70,000 clandestine abortions were performed per year, according to various studies.