| |
Nicaragua Refuses to Discuss
Therapeutic Abortion
By José Adán Silva
MANAGUA (IPS) - Nicaragua slammed the door on any
possible debate on the restitution of therapeutic
abortion - performed to save the life of the pregnant
woman - despite demands that it do so voiced during a
United Nations review of human rights in the country.
Under the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) system, the
U.N. Human Rights Council examines the human rights
record of each member state every four years. The
seventh session of the Council's UPR is taking place
Feb. 8-19 in Geneva, Switzerland, and includes
Nicaragua.
At last week's review on this Central American country,
the Human Rights Council issued a report urging
Nicaragua to strengthen protection for girls and women
against domestic and sexual violence, by providing
shelters for example, and modify the country's
legislation to bring it into line with international
standards.
The government accepted 68 of the recommendations set
forth in the Periodic Review and agreed to study 41
others by late June, when the national UPR report will
be formally adopted by the Human Rights Council.
But when the Nicaraguan government submitted its own
report to the 47 countries sitting on the Council, it
ruled out the restitution of therapeutic abortion, which
is only banned in a few countries around the world:
Chile, El Salvador, Malta and the Philippines, besides
Nicaragua.
Prominent human rights groups, medical associations,
women's organisations and the Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) called on
Nicaragua to study the possibility of establishing
exceptions to the ban on abortion, when the mother's
life is in danger or in cases of incest or rape.
The OHCHR also expressed its concern over high levels of
violence against women and harassment of journalists and
human rights defenders in Nicaragua.
The Committee against Torture "was deeply concerned by
the general prohibition of abortion in the Criminal
Code, even in cases of rape, incest or apparently
life-threatening pregnancies that in many cases are the
direct result of crimes of gender violence," says the
OHCHR in a compilation put together by a working group
on the UPR.
Countries like Britain, Finland, France, Mexico, the
Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland called on
the Nicaraguan government to consider making abortion
legal in cases of rape, incest or risk to the pregnant
woman's life.
The Nicaraguan delegation said it had "taken note" of
the recommendations and observations, but refused to
restore the right to therapeutic abortion.
The head of the Nicaraguan delegation, Interior Minister
Ana Isabel Morales, said "the legal reforms and new
provisions referring to abortion in Nicaragua are the
result of the exercise of sovereignty in our country;
this is not a religious issue.
"A majority of Nicaraguans believe the right to life of
the unborn child is important, because it is a human
being with the right to live. They also believe abortion
is not an appropriate method of birth control," the
minister said.
In October 2006, the Nicaraguan parliament passed a law
revoking article 165 of the criminal code, which had
permitted abortion for medical reasons since 1893. Women
who undergo abortions or health professionals who
practice them now risk prison terms of between four and
eight years.
Criminal sanctions were even introduced for doctors or
nurses who treat a pregnant woman for medical conditions
such as cancer or cardiac emergencies when the treatment
may hurt or kill the embryo or fetus.
The ban on abortion was adopted during the campaign for
the elections that brought President Daniel Ortega to
power in January 2007.
Ortega's left-wing Sandinista National Liberation Front
(FSLN) allied itself with the Catholic Church and the
second-largest political force, the right-wing Liberal
Constitutionalist Party, to make abortion illegal under
all circumstances.
The Nicaraguan government's inflexible stance on the
issue in Geneva drew protests from women's rights
groups.
The vice president of the International Federation for
Human Rights (FIDH) and president of the Nicaraguan
Centre for Human Rights (CENIDH), Vilma Núñez de
Escorcia, who flew to Geneva for the UPR, told IPS in
Managua that she deplored "that the Sandinista
government lied so much about the situation in the
country."
Fátima Millón of the Managua-based Central American
organisation Network of Women against Violence, said to
IPS that the government should withdraw the report it
submitted to the UPR because it was full of "false data
and arguments."
Millón accused the government of delaying the
administration of justice by postponing for over three
years dozens of lawsuits challenging the
constitutionality of the total ban on abortion, brought
by women's rights organisations, medical associations
and human rights groups.
The Supreme Court has not yet handed down a ruling in
any of the cases.
London-based rights watchdog Amnesty International
reported that Nicaragua's ban on abortion particularly
affects young girls who are victims of rape or incest.
"Nicaragua’s ban on abortion is the result of a shocking
and draconian law that is compelling rape and incest
victims to carry pregnancies to term and causing a rise
in maternal deaths," said Widney Brown, senior director
of international law and policy at Amnesty
International. "U.N. member states should take this
opportunity to hold Nicaragua to account for a law that
violates women’s right to life, health and dignity."
According to a survey of media reports between 2005 and
2007, 1,247 girls were reported to have been the victims
of rape or incest in Nicaragua. Of that total, 198
became pregnant as a result - the majority of whom (172)
were between 10 and 14 years old.
Amnesty also found an increase in maternal deaths since
the ban was introduced.
The maternal mortality rate in Nicaragua is 170 per
100,000 live births, compared to five per 100,000 in
Sweden, Switzerland or Israel.
According to international rights group Human Rights
Watch (HRW), nearly 40 percent of maternal deaths in
rural areas involve girls under the age of 19, and the
statistics show a steady rise in "deaths from indirect
obstetric causes."
Four U.N. expert committees - the Committee against
Torture, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights, the Human Rights Committee and the Committee on
the Elimination of Discrimination against Women - have
condemned the law and urged Nicaragua to revise it.
"Nicaragua's law criminalising abortion goes against the
advice of four U.N. treaty bodies and fails to meet its
obligations under international human rights laws," said
Amnesty's Brown. "Nicaragua needs to repeal this law
immediately and enact laws and policies that promote the
rights of women and girls by ensuring their rights to
health and life and to be free from violence, coercion
and discrimination."
The Human Rights Council also called on Nicaragua - the
second-poorest country in the western hemisphere, after
Haiti - to improve the prison system, strengthen food
security, protect journalists and human rights
defenders, take measures to fight racism, and protect
the rights of ethnic minorities, especially indigenous
people.
|
| |
|
|
|
