President of Ecuador partially vetoes law regulating access to abortion for rape

The President of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, partially vetoed the law regulating voluntary abortion for women victims of rape, reducing the period for terminating pregnancy to 12 weeks for abused girls.

“I have decided to include comments on the bill in order to ensure that it is in complete conformity with the ruling of the Constitutional Court,” the conservative president wrote in a letter posted on Twitter.

The Legislature, with an opposing majority, has 30 days to decide whether to accept the amendments of the Executive or whether to keep the original document approved on February 18.

In this law, the National Assembly stated that victims of rape under 18 years of age and women living in rural areas may have abortions up to 18 weeks of pregnancy, while adults and those in urban areas may do so up to twelve weeks of gestation.

Lasso established in the veto as the only term the twelve weeks of pregnancy, arguing that “we are all equal” before the Constitution and that “establishing legal differences between citizens based on their place of birth or conditions of origin would be contrary to that basic principle”.

The Ecuadorian Constitutional Court expanded access to abortion in cases of rape in April last year. Prior to that ruling, only women with disabilities or in danger of death could voluntarily terminate pregnancy.

In Ecuador, a woman who aborts for reasons other than those permitted is punished with up to two years in prison.

- “Painful reality” -

Assemblywoman Johanna Moreira, from the Democratic Left Party who presented the bill, said on Twitter that the short deadlines “will only affect the poorest and most forgotten, causing our women to lose their lives from hiding.”

“President @LassoGuillermo, with his partial veto, has not understood the painful reality that our girls live every day,” Moreira noted.

According to official data, seven children under 14 give birth daily in Ecuador, the third Latin American country with the highest pregnancy rate among girls and adolescents.

The ruler, who had expressed his disagreement with the law, submitted 61 comments to the document. These include the inclusion of conscientious objection by health personnel and requirements for access to abortion in cases of rape.

“The Constitutional Court expressly ordered the Legislative to establish the requirements for access to abortion in cases of rape. However, the Assembly has practically omitted them,” said Lasso, a former right-wing banker, in his letter.

In the document sent to the National Assembly, the ruler noted that the law, for example, “does not establish the duty to conduct a medical examination of the victim to verify the violation and protect the victim's health, nor does the collection of evidence for the investigation of the crime”.

Among the requirements raised by Lasso is the filing of the complaint of rape.

The feminist organization Surkuna maintains that, according to the Prosecutor's Office, between August 2014 and November 2021 there were about 42,000 complaints of rape.

Congressmen from the United States last week asked Lasso to enact the law on access to abortion in cases of rape unchanged. While Tamara Taraciuk Broner, Acting Director for the Americas of Human Rights Watch, said that with this rule the president “has the opportunity and responsibility to deliver on his campaign promises to respect the rule of law.”

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