CEG-INTEC asks the Senate to re-establish abortion decriminalization
SANTO DOMINGO. The Center for Gender Studies of Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (CEG-INTEC) requested the Senate of the Republic to restore the decriminalization of abortion in the Criminal Code in cases of rape, incest or a malformation in the fetus incompatible with life.
Through a statement, the CEG-INTEC coordinator, Lourdes Contreras, described as "shameful" the amendment to the Penal Code approved last week by the Chamber of Deputies, which affirmed that it does not recognize the rights of women contemplated in the Constitution of the Republic.
He recalled that the Dominican society applies a manifestly obsolete Code and that for its adaptation it has waited 19 for years, but contrary to the expectations of progress, it has received a backlash that violates women's rights.
The statement expresses that "the lack of appreciation of the lives of women that members of the House of Representatives manifest is disappointing, and affirmed that the absolute penalty constitutes an unacceptable setback that contravenes the spirit of the Dominican Constitution, which recognizes equality between men and women, and that establishes the obligation of the state to adopt all measures in the legislative order to ensure that equality is effective. "
Similarly, Contreras emphasized that the discussions and formulations of the text do not correspond neither to the needs and rights that the Dominican State has committed to guarantee, protect and promote, nor to the observation made twice in the power Executive in November 2014, when it was expressed that "fair, balanced and protective is to adapt our legislation to the needs and currents in most countries that allow abortion when the life of the mother is in danger, when the pregnancy has been fruit of a rape or incest and when the fetus has malformations incompatible with life ".
In this sense, the CEG-INTEC urges the Legislative Power not to continue ignoring the reality and rights of Dominican women, to whom the right to life and health must be guaranteed. It expresses its hope that the Senate of the Republic will take up the meaning and content of the presidential observation, which prevents discrimination from promoting discrimination, which also constitutes a death sentence to thousands of Dominicans for their condition as women.
It cites that the serious consequences of the absolute criminalization of abortion are: the high rate of maternal mortality; the re-victimization of rape survivors, who are forced to carry a lifelong reminder of their rapist; the denial of women to health services, because they are pregnant and they want to force their health to carry out a pregnancy even when the embryo is incompatible with life.