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Chile rejects abortion

Chile’s lower Chamber of Deputies has rejected a Bill that sought to introduce abortion on demand up to 14 weeks gestation.

The legislation, introduced in January this year, sought to amend the current Chilean penal code so that the current prohibitions on abortion only applied after 14 weeks.

After the vote in November, the lower chamber posted on Twitter: “The Chamber rejected a motion that modifies the Penal Code, to decriminalize consensual abortion by women within the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. The project is shelved”.

Abortion is currently legal in Chile under restricted circumstances including if the mother’s being pregnant is a result of rape or if the mother’s life is in danger.

Rosario Corvalán, a lawyer with the legislative department of the Chilean NGO Comunidad y Justicia, expressed her joy over “the result and for the message it sends to citizens”.

“They must stop giving us the message that ‘the majority of citizens want these bills,’ because our representatives have spoken and they don’t want abortion”, Corvalán said.

“Although the law can’t change reality, it can be instructive. If you see that the majority of Congress says that ‘abortion is a crime,’ that helps citizens to reflect and say that ‘abortion is a bad thing’”.

Corvalán encouraged pro-lifers “not to stop defending their ideas, thinking that they’re an exception or something unusual. Let’s go back to this common sense idea of defending the life of an innocent person”.

Abortion in South and Central America

Despite widespread popular opposition, Argentina introduced abortion on demand last year. Argentina is only the third country in South America to introduce abortion on demand, alongside Uruguay and Guyana.

Earlier in 2020, thousands of protesters joined in pro-life demonstrations, which according to organisers, took place in across more than 500 cities in Argentina in opposition to a bill that would legalise abortion on demand.

Argentina has joined a long list of countries where governments and unelected officials have imposed abortion on their citizens without popular support. Most famously, this took place in the United States in 1973 when seven unelected judges imposed abortion on all fifty states.

Right To Life UK spokesperson, Catherine Robinson, said: “Obviously this is a good thing. Despite what abortion supporters think, there need be no opposition between mothers and their own babies. We do not have to pick one to the detriment of the other. Laws that prevent abortion recognise that both mothers’ and babies’ lives matter. The law can protect both and we can love both”.

Dear reader,

You may be surprised to learn that our 24-week abortion time limit is out of line with the majority of European Union countries, where the most common time limit for abortion on demand or on broad social grounds is 12 weeks gestation.

The latest guidance from the British Association of Perinatal Medicine enables doctors to intervene to save premature babies from 22 weeks. The latest research indicates that a significant number of babies born at 22 weeks gestation can survive outside the womb, and this number increases with proactive perinatal care.

This leaves a real contradiction in British law. In one room of a hospital, doctors could be working to save a baby born alive at 23 weeks whilst, in another room of that same hospital, a doctor could perform an abortion that would end the life of a baby at the same age.

The majority of the British population support reducing the time limit. Polling has shown that 70% of British women favour a reduction in the time limit from 24 weeks to 20 weeks or below.

Please click the button below to sign the petition to the Prime Minister, asking him to do everything in his power to reduce the abortion time limit.