Bolivia: The Government Plans to Decriminalize Abortion

The wording, if passed by the members of parliament, would allow elective abortion during the first eight weeks of gestation for women living in the street or “in extreme poverty", mothers of “three or more children who do not have the resources with which to raise their offspring” and students. The “right to abort” would also be extended to any moment of pregnancy whatsoever in the case of a malformed fetus and would be unconditional if the pregnant person is a child or an adolescent, or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.

According to an article posted on cath.ch on March 15, 2017, the Bolivian Episcopal Conference reacted on its website and denounced the fact that, “This bill introduces a foreign ideological colonization which rejects vulnerable pre-born infants and accepts the sad violence of abortion as a means that is supposed to solve social and economic problems.”

In his homily on Sunday, March 12, Archbishop Sergio Gualberti, Ordinary of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, described the government initiative as “harmful". He considers the bill as opposed to the “right to life", which however is “guaranteed by the Constitution". Consequently, he officially asked the Bolivian parliamentarians to reject this law.

The College of Physicians in Bolivia has also spoken out against the modification of article 157 of the Penal Code. According to Radio France Internationale (RFI) on March 22, 2017, its president, Anibal Cruz, stated in particular that if the law was passed, this college would invoke “conscientious objection so as not to have to perform abortions".

Paradoxically, pro-abortion groups are not satisfied either. According to RFI, they demand “decriminalization pure and simple” with no restrictions, arguing that “67,000 women go to the hospital each year following a botched abortion, and 500 of them die.”

A pro-family organization, National Family Pastoral Care, quoted by cath.ch on March 15, 2017, also pointed out the inconsistencies of this bill, stressing that it “falsifies the system of criminal justice by introducing poverty as a reason for impunity for crimes such as infanticide and euthanasia, as though being poor was sufficient justification for violating any law whatsoever”. Currently the Bolivian Penal Code foresees a punishment of two to six years of imprisonment for any physician or person who performs an abortion.

For the moment, the bill is being discussed by the legislative assembly’s Justice Committee, and no date has been set for a vote. In February 2014, the Constitutional Court of Bolivia rejected the decriminalization of abortion and acknowledged “the right to life from conception", in response to a similar bill introduced in June 2013 by the Socialist deputies.

Sources: cath.ch/ rfi / radio vatican – DICI no. 352 dated March 31, 2017