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cvanderloo

Incest case attests that, in Costa Rica, abortion is legal in name only - 0 views

theconversation.com/on-is-legal-in-name-only-75766

abortion rights women gender Latin America Costa Rics

shared by cvanderloo on 26 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • In Costa Rica, women have had the right to abortion since 1970. Well, more or less.
  • The concept of the “unpunished abortion”, established in article 121 of the penal code, permits the termination of a pregnancy as long the procedure is consensual, performed by a doctor (or, if necessary, by an authorised obstetrician), and is the only way to protect the life or health of the woman.
    • cvanderloo
      cvanderloo on 26 Mar 21
       
      "therapeutic abortion"
  • For many women whose pregnancies constitute a physical or emotional risk – including women carrying deformed fetuses that will never survive outside the womb, rape victims, and pregnant girls – abortion is never an option.
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  • The case is in question involves a 12-year-old girl known under the pseudonym Andrea, who was impregnated by her father and prevented from terminating her pregnancy.
  • On the other, the majority-Catholic country is not secular. And abortion continues to be taboo for health-care workers.
  • Andrea is depressed, says her mother, barely eating, suffering extreme nausea from the pregnancy and – critically – says she does not want to have the baby.
  • The case demonstrates that even when confronted with a 12-year-old incest victim, who says that she wants to die and to abort her pregnancy, Costa Rica’s legal and medical establishment do not offer legal or medical responses
  • Other Central American countries, including Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua also violate women’s rights by outlawing abortion under any circumstances, even when a woman’s life is in danger.
  • The highly visible international cases of Ana and Aurora have compelled the Costa Rican government to write a technical norm that it insists will further enshrine legal protection for medical personnel who perform an abortion to avoid endangering the life and health of a pregnant woman.
  • And none too soon; stories of dangerous clandestine abortions circulate.
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