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Guatemala’s congress has elevated jail sentences for girls who’ve abortions, bucking a current development in Latin America towards increasing entry to the procedures.
As a few of Latin America’s largest international locations – Mexico, Argentina, Colombia – have expanded abortion entry previously two years, there stay international locations the place conservative non secular developments proceed to carry sway.
Late on Tuesday – Worldwide Ladies’s Day – Guatemala’s congress handed a “Safety of Life and Household” regulation that additionally focused the LGBTQ+ neighborhood.
Guatemalan ladies convicted of terminating their pregnancies can now face sentences as much as 10 years that earlier than had been a most of three. The congress imposed even heavier penalties for docs and others who help ladies in ending pregnancies.
Abortions are authorized solely when the lifetime of the mom is in danger.
On Wednesday, which Guatemala’s congress declared “Life and Household Day”, President Alejandro Giammattei stated in a speech on the Nationwide Palace, “This occasion is an invite to unite as Guatemalans to guard life from conception till pure loss of life.”
Lawmakers backing the laws stated the regulation was obligatory as a result of “minority teams in society suggest methods of considering and practices which are incongruous with Christian morality”.
Vicenta Gerónimo, who voted towards the laws, stated it violated human rights, particularly of girls in rural areas the place there isn’t a authorities well being infrastructure.
The laws handed with 101 votes in favor and eight towards. Fifty-one lawmakers weren’t current.
Jordan Rodas, Guatemala’s elected human rights prosecutor, stated Guatemala was regressing by limiting ladies’s rights at a time the world was increasing them. He added that these supporting sexual range weren’t searching for privileges, “however wish to reside freed from stigma and discrimination”.
“The approval of this harmful initiative represents a menace to the rights of girls and LGBT individuals within the nation,” stated Cristian González of Human Rights Watch. He additionally stated the laws served as a distraction from President Giammattei’s systematic dismantling of the justice system.
Opposition lawmaker Samuel Pérez stated it was authorized by males unaffected by the difficulty of abortion.
Colombia expanded entry to abortion final month when the constitutional courtroom voted to legalize the process till the twenty fourth week of being pregnant. Earlier than the ruling, Colombia allowed abortions solely when a girl’s life was at risk, a fetus had malformations or the being pregnant resulted from rape.
In September, Mexico’s supreme courtroom dominated that abortion was not against the law, and that it was unconstitutional to punish abortion.
And in January of final 12 months, a regulation went into impact in Argentina permitting elective abortion as much as the 14th week of being pregnant and past that in circumstances involving rape or threat to the lady’s well being. It was all of the extra vital as a result of Pope Francis hails from Argentina.
The Guatemala laws additionally explicitly prohibited same-sex marriage – which was already in impact unlawful – and banned faculties from instructing something that would “deviate [a child’s] identification in response to their start gender”.
Lawmaker Armando Castillo, an ally of Giammattei’s administration, defended the laws, saying that the one factor it did was shield “heterosexual individuals who have no real interest in range”.
However the opposition lawmaker Lucrecia Hernández warned her colleagues that the “regulation stigmatizes individuals, discriminates and foments intolerance and hate speech and crimes”.
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