Last updated on February 26th, 2022 at 03:15 pm
This week, the bad news has made the rounds on the web: on Monday evening, February 21 Colombia decriminalized abortion.
The Constitutional Court of Bogotá passed the measure with five votes in favor and four against, following the “Green Wave” of demonstrations of pro-abortion groups demanding that Colombia follow other Ibero-American countries, such as Argentina, Mexico and to some extent Ecuador, where similar decisions have been made.
Until Monday, abortion in Colombia had been permitted only in cases of risk to the life or health of the mother, serious fetal malformations, or when the pregnancy was the result of rape, incest or non-consensual artificial insemination. After the Court’s ruling, however, it is now possible to terminate a pregnancy up to the 24th week of life in the womb electively.
It should be noted how the media consistently write “only in the first 24 weeks of pregnancy”, as if to say that after all that this is just a small proportion of pregnancies, when dealing with “just a fetus, a clump of cells”—attempting to dampen the horror of killing a child. They need reminding, it seems, that first of all life begins at conception, and secondly that on average a whole pregnancy lasts “only” 40 weeks, and 24-week-old babies can survive outside the womb if they have parents who will fight for them and physicians who will provide the needed care. These are facts, which no court has the power to change.
In Bogotá, however, the court has attempted to do just this, with its ruling urging Congress to legislate on health policies that include “clear disclosure of the options available to women during and after pregnancy, the elimination of all obstacles to the exercise of the sexual and reproductive rights that are recognized in this ruling, the existence of pregnancy prevention tools and planning, the development of educational programs on sexual and reproductive education for all persons, support measures for pregnant mothers that include adoption options, among others, and measures that guarantee the rights of the born in the case of pregnant women who wanted an abortion.”
The decision was welcome, in Colombia and abroad, with glee by the abortion industry. “We appreciate the political and legal courage of the Constitutional Court in recognizing that women and girls are not second-class citizens,” said Paula Avila-Guillen, an international human rights lawyer and executive director of the New York-based Women’s Equality Center (WEC). “In constitutionally protecting our autonomy over our bodies and our lives, the court is changing the lives of millions of women and girls.” She did not add the qualification that she only meant the lives of those women and girls allowed to be born.
Eugenia Lopez Uribe, regional director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, also rejoiced: “As we celebrate this historic decision today, the Green Wave. is strong and growing, and the fight for reproductive rights and justice will not end until every person has access to high-quality sexual and reproductive care when and where they need it.” No doubt Planned Parenthood also has cause to celebrate the decision since it means so much more money in the coffers of the global leader of the abortion agenda.
“This…. [is] a historic victory for the women’s movement in Colombia, which has been fighting for decades for the recognition of their rights,” added Erika Guevara-Rosas, director for the Ibero-American region of Amnesty International. “Women, girls, and people capable of having children are the only ones who should be making decisions about their own bodies,” she proclaimed confidently, with the perfunctory wink to the LGBT+ movement.
Particularly discouraging is a second statement from WEC’s Avila-Guillen, as it is a harbinger of more bad news we may hear in the future: “We know that this will have a ripple effect in other Latin American countries that have yet to take this step toward human rights and social justice.”
Human rights, social justice… nice words, but being used to hide the essential fact: abortion always ends a human life.
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