Girls take part in an indication marking Worldwide Girls's Day in downtown Guatemala Metropolis, Tuesday, March 8, 2022. (AP Photograph/Oliver de Ros)
GUATEMALA CITY --
Guatemalan lawmakers have elevated jail sentences for ladies who've abortions, bucking a current development in Latin America towards increasing entry to the procedures.
As a few of Latin America's largest international locations - Mexico, Argentina, Colombia - have expanded abortion entry previously two years, there stay international locations the place conservative spiritual traits proceed to carry sway.
Late Tuesday - Worldwide Girls's Day - Guatemala's Congress handed a “Safety of Life and Household” regulation that additionally focused the 2SLGBTQ+ group.
On Wednesday, which Guatemala's Congress declared “Life and Household Day,” President Alejandro Giammattei stated in a speech on the Nationwide Palace, “This occasion is an invite to unite as Guatemalans to guard life from conception till pure dying.”
Guatemalan girls convicted of terminating their pregnancies can now face sentences as much as 10 years that earlier than had been a most of three. The Congress imposed even heavier penalties for medical doctors and others who help girls in ending pregnancies.
Abortions are authorized solely when the lifetime of the mom is in danger.
Lawmakers backing the laws stated the regulation was mandatory as a result of “minority teams in society suggest methods of pondering and practices which might be incongruous with Christian morality.”
Lawmaker Vicenta Geronimo, who voted in opposition to the laws, stated it violates human rights, particularly of girls in rural areas the place there is not a authorities well being infrastructure.
The laws handed with 101 votes in favor and eight in opposition to. Fifty-one lawmakers weren't current.
Jordan Rodas, Guatemala's elected human rights prosecutor, stated Guatemala was regressing by limiting girls's rights at a time the world was increasing them. He added that these supporting sexual range usually are not searching for privileges, “however wish to reside freed from stigma and discrimination.”
“The approval of this harmful initiative represents a risk to the rights of girls and LGBT individuals within the nation,” stated Cristian Gonzalez of Human Rights Watch. He additionally stated the laws served as a distraction from President Giammattei's systematic dismantling of the justice system.
Opposition lawmaker Samuel Perez stated it was authorized by males unaffected by the difficulty of abortion.
Colombia expanded entry to abortion final month when the Constitutional Court docket voted to legalize the process till the twenty fourth week of being pregnant. Previous to the ruling, Colombia allowed abortions solely when a girl's life was in peril, a fetus had malformations or the being pregnant resulted from rape.
In September, Mexico's Supreme Court docket dominated that abortion was not against the law, that it was unconstitutional to punish abortion.
And in January of final yr, a regulation went into impact in Argentina permitting elective abortion as much as the 14th week of being pregnant and past that in instances involving rape or danger to the girl's well being. It was all of the extra important as a result of Pope Francis hails from Argentina.
The Guatemala laws additionally explicitly prohibited same-sex marriage - which was already successfully unlawful - and banned colleges from instructing something that would “deviate (a baby's) id in response to their beginning gender.”
Lawmaker Armando Castillo, an ally of Giammattei's administration, defended the laws, saying that the one factor it does is shield “heterosexual individuals who have no real interest in range.”
However opposition lawmaker Lucrecia Hernandez warned her colleagues that the “the regulation stigmatizes individuals, discriminates and foments intolerance and hate speech and crimes.”
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