"If we have a girl whose physical and emotional health are going to be damaged because an abortion isn't offered to her, then what are we doing as a society?" lawyer Larissa Arroyo asked The Tico Times.
A recent survey found that the Costa Rican population maintains a conservative stance on controversial issues such as same-sex marriage, abortion, or the legalization of marijuana.
A committee from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights recommended that Costa Rica should review its legislation on abortion in cases of rape, incest or when fatal fetal impairment exists.
VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis insisted Thursday that abortion was always a crime but hinted that the Church could exceptionally relax its ban on contraception for women at risk of contracting the Zika virus.
Pope Francis said Tuesday that during a special "year of mercy" he's designated that all priests would have the right to hear confession for abortion. Is it a symbolic gesture?
According to the Salvadoran group Citizens' Coalition for the Decriminalization of Abortion, 129 women were put on trial for abortion in El Salvador between 2000 and 2011. Most of them had their charges upped to murder, according to the group, and many were convicted.
Salvadoran law provides for a sentence of two to eight years in prison for induced abortion. But if a spontaneous abortion is considered to be self-induced, the woman can be prosecuted for murder and face a sentence of up to 50 years in prison.
The complaints “seek to expose the government’s systematic failures in providing women with a protocol to handle therapeutic abortion requests when the health and lives of women are endangered.”
