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September 20, 2007
The renewed ban on therapeutic abortion will put many women living in Nicaragua at risk.
Celeste Gonzalez
 

On Thursday, September 13, the Nicaraguan National Assembly rejected a vote to legalize therapeutic abortion, cementing the country’s complete ban on abortion. Banning therapeutic abortions (interrupting a pregnancy before fetal viability to save the life or health of the woman, in the case of fetal malformation, or in the case of rape or incest) is a painful backwards step for human and reproductive rights in Nicaragua. This vote, made on the pretext of “promoting life,” will result in increased death and suffering for Nicaraguan women and their families.

Therapeutic abortions have been illegal in Nicaragua since last October, when the Nicaraguan National Assembly voted unanimously to ban all abortions.  Although abortions were restricted before the ban (women had to obtain the approval of a team of three medical doctors, as well as the permission of their partners or closest relatives), therapeutic abortions had been legal in Nicaragua for more than 130 years.

A handful of progressive legislators recently proposed changes to Nicaragua’s penal code to reauthorize therapeutic abortions.  On September 13th, this proposal was rejected. As the laws currently stand in Nicaragua, the punishment for abortion is the same, regardless of medical need. Any woman who consents to an abortion or deliberately causes one herself will face up to two years in prison. Any person who provides an abortion faces at least one to three years’ imprisonment; medical and health care providers will also lose their license to provide health care for two to five years.

Despite dedicated efforts by Ipas’ Central American office and other reproductive rights groups, majorities from both of Nicaragua’s major political parties rejected the proposal. El Nuevo Diario, a Nicaraguan newspaper, reported that legislators referred to the feminists and public-health advocates protesting the law as “assassins” and “lesbians.”

Nicaragua are more likely to die during or shortly after pregnancy than they were almost anywhere else in the Americas. The ban on therapeutic abortion will only cause more deaths. Recent studies in Brazil and other locations have found that restricting abortion does not prevent it from happening; instead the restrictions drive abortion underground to dangerous, unqualified practitioners. In the case of Nicaragua, the harsh penalties associated with providing an abortion will ensure that only the most desperate, least established providers will be willing to provide abortions.

Women have already suffered because of the changes to Nicaragua’s laws. The number of women who have died from indirect obstetrical causes has doubled since the abortion ban. Since the ban, more than 82 maternal deaths have been officially recorded in Nicaragua, and at least five of these women had diseases that would have made them eligible for therapeutic abortion. The ban on therapeutic abortion disproportionately affects the most vulnerable women in Nicaragua. Three-fourths of the women who have died so far lived in rural areas; more than 80 percent were adolescents and young adults.

Nicaragua’s abortion laws are also likely to harm women who develop pregnancy-related complications and emergencies unrelated to abortion. Doctors who are wary of facing punishment may hesitate to provide obstetric services that may actually be legal. In some cases, this hesitation can result in delays that cause permanent damage to women’s reproductive systems; in others, it may result in women being transferred to other hospitals without receiving treatment.

Unfortunately, this opportunity was likely the best hope to legalize therapeutic abortion for the foreseeable future. Earlier this January, the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights and other organizations brought the law to Nicaragua’s Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ), but the Court never took up this appeal.

Ipas will continue working to make health care available to the women who need it. One potentially fruitful avenue may be pursuing abortion as a human-rights issue. Nicaragua has agreed to international treaties that guarantee that all of its people, regardless of gender or economic background, have the rights to dignity and to receive health care. Bringing the ban on abortion to international organizations, such as the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights in Costa Rica, on the grounds that the ban violates these international treaties may be key to pressuring the Nicaraguan government to change the legislation.

For more information, contact:
Kirsten Sherk
Senior Associate, Media Relations
e-mail: sherkk@ipas.org
phone: 919.960.5612
fax: 919.929.0258