WGNRR Commends Chile’s Move to Ease Total Abortion Ban, Expanding Access to Safe & Legal Abortion

The Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights (WGNRR) welcomes the recent approval of the Chilean Health Commission of the Legislative Chamber to decriminalize abortion in cases where the pregnant woman’s life is at risk, or in cases of fatal foetal impairments,[1] and urges the Commission to also approve abortion in case of rape, as recommended by the current government.

The recent recommendation by the Chilean Health Commission is a huge step forward for women in Chile, as it embodies a commitment to respect, protect, and fulfill women and girls’ sexual and reproductive rights, including their right to health, bodily integrity, and to life free from harm.[2] As a global network of more than 1000 members around the globe advocating, promoting and defending sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), including access to safe and legal abortion, WGNRR calls upon the Major Chamber to vote in favor of the decriminalization of abortion on all three grounds. We urge the Chilean State to take this fundamental step in expanding women and girls’ right to access to safe and legal abortion, aligning its national laws with its regional and international human rights commitments.

The criminalization of abortion has not been shown to reduce abortion rates; rather, in countries where abortion is highly restricted, such as Chile, it is typically unsafe, where women are forced to compromise their health and often risk their lives.[3] Moreover, young, poor and unmarried women are those who are most likely to resort to unsafe abortion, highlighting the impact of restrictive abortion laws in perpetuating social injustice and inequality. In this sense, complete bans of abortion, even in cases of rape, incest, or when the woman’s health or life is at risk, are a grave violation of human rights, and constitute institutional violence.

As asserted by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, the “failure of a State to provide services and the criminalization of some services that only women require is a violation of women’s reproductive rights and constitutes discrimination against them.”[4] The Committee Against Torture has also upheld that punitive abortion laws violate women’s right to be free from inhuman and cruel treatment.[5] And as established in the Interim report of the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health:

“Criminal laws penalizing and restricting induced abortion are the paradigmatic examples of impermissible barriers to the realization of women’s right to health and must be eliminated. These laws infringe women’s dignity and autonomy by severely restricting decision-making by women in respect of their sexual and reproductive health. Moreover, such laws consistently generate poor physical health outcomes, resulting in deaths that could have been prevented, morbidity and ill-health, as well as negative mental health outcomes, not least because affected women risk being thrust into the criminal justice system. Creation or maintenance of criminal laws with respect to abortion may amount to violations of the obligations of States to respect, protect and fulfill the right to health.”[6]

 At the first Regional Conference on Population and Development, Chile and other governments of Latin America and the Caribbean signed the Montevideo Consensus and recognized the importance of “amending their laws, regulations, strategies and public policies relating to the voluntary termination of pregnancy in order to protect the lives and health of women and adolescent girls.”[7]

 In this sense, we urge the Chilean Health Commission to:

• Prioritize the issue of safe and legal abortion in compliance with prior international commitments such as the Convention to Eliminate all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, the ICPD Programme of Action, the Convention of Belém do Pará, and other regional and international human rights treaties;
• Pass the bill on all three grounds recommended by the current government, namely in cases to preserve the life of the pregnant woman, in cases of unviability of extra-uterine foetal life, and in cases of rape;
• Urge the major chamber to vote in favor and expand women’s access to safe and legal abortion.

[1] Aborto: Comisión Aprobó Causales de Inviabilidad del Feto y de Riesgo para la Madre (2015).

[2]Center for Reproductive Rights (2011), Briefing Paper: Safe and Legal Abortion is a Woman’s Human Right.

[3] Guttmacher Institute (2012), Facts on induced abortion worldwide.

[4] Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) (2014). Statement of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women on sexual and reproductive health and rights: Beyond 2014 ICPD review, p. 1-2.

[5] CAT/C/PER/CO/4, para. 23; CAT/C/NIC/CO/1, para. 16; and CAT/C/CR/32/5, para. 7.

[6]Interim Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, A/66/254 para. 21.

[7] 2013 Montevideo Consensus on Population and Development, Para. 42.