The UN crossed out this decision and considers it a “block” to the progress of sexual and reproductive rights of women and girls in the Central American country.
The National Congress of Honduras approved a constitutional reform that seeks to prevent abortion in all circumstances. In this country there is one of the highest rates of adolescent pregnancy, where 1 in 4 young people under 19 years of age is pregnant
The constitutional reform to article 67 applied by the Honduran Congress considers “prohibited and illegal the practice of any form of interruption of life by the mother or a third party to whom he is to be born.”
This new constitutional reform stipulates a penalty of 2 to 8 years, for all those who decide to practice an abortion. This change can only be altered if the congress achieves at some point a majority of three quarters of the members of the plenary session.
Abortion has been prohibited in Honduras since 1982 and it is not contemplated in biological malformations, rapes or when the life of the mother is at risk, that is, it has a 100% prohibition.
Several feminist groups gathered outside the congress, asking legislators to give women the opportunity to abort when they are raped. The United Nations (UN) also condemned this reform and assured that it “would block any possible progress in the sexual and reproductive rights of women and girls in Honduras.”
Honduras has one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancies, and along with El Salvador, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Suriname it is one of the few countries that still totally penalizes abortion.
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