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Since 2006, the abortion procedure is legal only if there are gestation difficulties or the pregnancy resulted from proven rape or incest.
Colombia's feminist organizations Sunday demonstrated near the Palace of Justice in Bogota to demand the legalization of the abortion.
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About 50 pro-abortion activists carried signs and shouted out slogans like “Here we are” and “We are the voice of those gone.”
"We demonstrate for the right to decide. We have the freedom to decide about our bodies, our ovaries, about whether or not we want to have a daughter or a son,” a protester said.
In early September, 91 social organizations and 134 activists filed a lawsuit at the Constitutional Court intended to decriminalize abortion.
In Colombia: abortion illegal except in case of rape, incest, or risk of death for mother. Feminicides on the rise. Rape of a little indigenous girl by a group of soldiers last week described by some politicians as a hoax. Prostitution not explicitely legal but also not illegal.
— Marina �� (@mar0uxna) July 9, 2020
Since 2006, the procedure is legal in Colombia only if there are gestation difficulties or the pregnancy resulted from proven rape or incest. Women who voluntarily interrupt their pregnancy could face up to three years in jail.
"The criminalization is the main barrier from which all the others are derived. Women in Colombia continue to face the risk of criminal prosecution, imprisonment, discrimination, and stigmatization when they seek to access services safely, largely because abortion remains a crime under the Penal Code,” the NGO Women’s Link said.
Pro-choice advocators said that the abortion ban forces women to seek unsafe procedures to interrupt pregnancy, and breaches their right to equity and freedom.
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