The right to abortion reaches the draft of the new Chilean Constitution

Santiago, Chile, March 15 The Plenary Session of the Constitutional Convention of Chile approved an article on sexual rights and reproductive laws defining abortion on Tuesday, writing the final text that will be a referendum this year. “Everyone has sexual and reproductive rights, including the right to make free, independent and informal decisions about sex, reproduction, satisfaction and contraception.” The second paragraph of the article states “Special attention should be paid to gender, inclusion and cultural significance, and sexual and reproductive rights must be exercised without discrimination (...) the endurance of all women and individuals, the status of pregnancy, voluntary termination of pregnancy, childbirth and voluntary and protected motherhood.” “We were assigned after the painful abandonment of the Congress of the Republic, which did not take into account the necessary measures that our country would take to establish fundamental rights. Today we break the cycle of exclusion and discrimination in constitutional history. We had to wait 200 years,” said Barbara Sepulveda, an existing member of the Communist Party. This is a historical vote expected by thousands in South American countries, and a scene of a strong wave of feminists who have played a leading role in the United States in recent years, including a day of repeated protests in all cities at the end of 2019. Legal abortion is a historical requirement for feminist groups in Latin America where only four states are criminalized: Argentina, Colombia (up to 24 states), Cuba, Uruguay, Guyana and Mexico. Various studies have shown that by 2017, about 70,000 abortions were performed each year in Chile, all of which are hidden. According to the Ministry of Health, between 2018 and 2020, 1827 legal abortions were registered in Chile, indicating that tens of thousands of women are still illegally pregnant.