Abortion is No Longer Illegal in Chile, Once Steadfast Against This Tragedy

Congress rejected the pleas filed by the right-wing opposition with a vote of six to four on the three motives for legal abortion. According to Vatican Radio, abortion is now legal in Chile in three cases: when the mother’s life is in danger; when the fetus is unviable; or when the pregnancy is the result of rape. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/21/world/americas/chile-abortion-court…

In its latest declaration on July 21, the permanent Committee of the Chilean Bishops’ Conference stated that this new law leads to an “unfair discrimination against defenceless human beings in Chilean society, and the State is called to guarantee and protect this life”. 

Until August 21, 2017, Chile was one of the eighteen remaining countries in the world where abortion was illegal under every circumstance. It was forbidden only in 1989, towards the end of General Augusto Pinochet’s regime, and Michelle Bachelet, the current Socialist president of the country, presented a bill intended to make the interdiction more flexible shortly after her second inauguration in 2014.

As lefigaro.fr pointed out on August 22, this depenalization, supported according to surveys by 70% of the population, “marks a major societal change in Chile,” one of the last developed countries to recognize divorce, that only became legal in 2004.

“The next project of the Socialist president? Legalizing homosexual ‘marriage.’”