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Today’s decision from the Colombian Constitutional Court to decriminalize abortion is a victory for women and human rights activists everywhere. This ruling comes in response to a 2020 lawsuit filed by the organizations of the Causa Justa (Just Cause) movement in Colombia. Abortion will not be considered as a criminal matter until the 24th week of pregnancy. This paves the way for removing obstacles and guaranteeing access to abortion as a right and an essential health service.
In response to the ruling, Giselle Carino, Chief Executive Officer of Fòs Feminista, an international feminist alliance that supports Causa Justa, issued the following statement:
“We celebrate the Court’s decision as a significant victory for all women and girls in Colombia, and particularly for rural women, survivors of gender-based violence, and others at the margins who are most impacted by the criminalization of abortion. With our local partners in Colombia, we will be working to expand access to rights-based information about abortion and safe abortion care, including through telehealth and community-based platforms, and supporting accompaniment networks for self-managed abortion.
“Although our struggle continues, the Colombian Supreme Court decision demonstrates the strength of feminist movements as they organize to demand reproductive justice. We’ve seen Argentina, Mexico, and now Colombia reject laws that penalize and incarcerate women for making choices about their bodies and their futures. Energized by this groundbreaking decision, we join advocates across the region in enthusiastically waving our green handkerchiefs in solidarity.”
Aura Carolina Cuasapud, a spokesperson from Causa Justa, which filed the lawsuit that prompted the Court’s decision today, expressed:
“This is a historic decision: Colombia has become the first country in the region where abortion will be legal until the 24th week. This will give more women and girls the opportunity to have a safe abortion, particularly those living in more vulnerable conditions. The ruling of the Court will also allow health providers to avoid criminalization and do their vital work of protecting women and girls. We will continue this fight until abortion is completely erased from the penal code, but for now, we celebrate. This is not the end, but rather a new beginning: We still must ensure that reproductive health services will be available for everyone who needs them.”
A brief history of decriminalization in Colombia:
In 2006, the Colombian Constitutional Court ruled to allow abortion under three exceptions, or causales: in cases of rape, fetal malformation, and danger to the woman’s life and health. But women in Colombia continue to face multiple barriers to accessing legal abortions. These include a lack of trained health care providers, bureaucratic hurdles for getting the legal permission to have the procedure, and the pervasive stigma associated with criminalization.
In 2020 alone, as COVID-19 disrupted access to basic health services, including reproductive services, around 30,000 pregnant women and girls were denied the right to have a legal abortion. In this context, some 132,000 women in Colombia suffer complications due to unsafe abortion each year, making the Court’s decision not only a matter of social justice, but also of health rights.
In December 2021, as the Constitutional Court was about to start the debate to change the penal code, one of the nine members of the tribunal was impeded to vote given that he had previously expressed his views on abortion during an interview with a local media outlet. In January 2022, the remaining eight judges voted on the abortion case but there was a tie: four in favor and four against. To break the tie, the judges had to select a temporary member of the Court, who had the last word on decriminalization of abortion and voted in favor today. Also, today the Court requested Congress and the National Government to pass and implement a policy that will allow all Colombian women to access safe and legal abortion.
The Green Wave:
In December of 2020, Argentina’s Congress passed legislation allowing women to terminate their pregnancies during the first trimester. This victory followed more than a decade of organizing by diverse civil society groups and country-wide mobilizations where women, girls and their allies waved green handkerchiefs as a symbol of their demand for reproductive justice.
In September 2021, the Mexican Supreme Court ruled that criminal penalties for abortion were unconstitutional because they violated human dignity, autonomy, equality, reproductive health and freedom, among other rights. The rise of the Green Wave across Latin America stands in stark contrast to events in the United States, where abortion bans in Texas and Mississippi are being considered by state appeals courts and the Supreme Court, respectively.
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Fòs Feminista is an international feminist alliance centered around sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice for women, girls, and gender-diverse people. Together with more than 135 local organizations across the globe, we engage in healthcare, education, and advocacy to advance our agenda. This includes providing sexual and reproductive health services and implementing community-based strategies that make sexual and reproductive healthcare more accessible to women, girls, and others at the margins. We also engage young people with comprehensive sexuality education and provide care to survivors of gender-based violence. We stand alongside our partners in the streets, in the courts, and in other advocacy spaces as an unapologetically feminist voice, resisting injustice and advocating for gender equality and reproductive rights locally and globally.
La Mesa por la Vida y la Salud de las Mujeres founded the Causa Justa movement in 2018 in collaboration with four other organizations: the Center for Reproductive Rights, Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir Colombia, Grupo Médico por el Derecho a Decidir Colombia, and Women’s Link Worldwide. The movement has grown to more than 90 organizations and over 130 people. Causa Justa seeks to eliminate the crime of abortion from the Colombian penal code and filed an unconstitutionality claim to this end in 2020.
