Back

Weekly Report - 24 August 2017 (WR-17-33)

Chile leaves rapidly diminishing club

Chile will shortly leave the last select group of countries in the region, and the world, which outlaw abortion in all of its forms: El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Suriname. The final obstacle to a law allowing women to interrupt pregnancies if their life is endangered, if they have been the victim of rape or incest, or if the foetus is declared unviable, was removed this week when the constitutional tribunal (TC) issued a historic ruling rejecting a legal challenge from members of the right-wing opposition coalition Chile Vamos. The law had made it through Chile’s congress earlier in the month.

“Women will recover the basic right they should never have lost: to decide when we live painful moments,” President Michelle Bachelet said on Twitter in reference to the fact that abortion was legal before the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). “Women have won, democracy has won, and Chile has won,” Bachelet said later from the presidential palace La Moneda. Bachelet’s much-trumpeted reform agenda has largely fallen flat over the last three years, and her popularity has slumped accordingly, but she now looks like leaving office in March 2018 with one positive legacy.

End of preview - This article contains approximately 385 words.

Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article

Not a Subscriber?

Choose from one of the following options

LatinNews
Intelligence Research Ltd.
167-169 Great Portland Street,
5th floor,
London, W1W 5PF - UK
Phone : +44 (0) 203 695 2790
Contact
You may contact us via our online contact form
Copyright © 2022 Intelligence Research Ltd. All rights reserved.