The president of the Chamber of Deputies, Alfredo Pacheco (PRM-National District) said on 2 February 2021 that the Constitution would have to be reformed first for Congress to pass a bill allowing exceptions to the ban on abortion.
When opposition and minority in Congress, Pacheco and the PRM legislators in general had favored the three exceptions to the criminalizing of abortion. Now, Pacheco has led a movement in the Chamber of Deputies to remove the issue of abortion from the Penal Code bill that is under review in Congress. He has backed that it be reviewed in separate legislation. He now says that the resulting bill would be subject to the amendment of the constitutional ban on abortion.
But when asked to pass the exceptions bill before the amended Penal Code, Pacheco has evaded the subject. Alianza Pais deputy Jose Horacio Rodríguez said the motion for debates of a separate bill is but a pacifier for women’s groups.
Women’s group protest that it is a crime if a physician allows an abortion to save the life of the mother, in the case of fatal fetal abnormalities, and in the case of rape or incest.
Dr. Liliam Fondeur has told Noticias SIN says that the abortion exceptions will not increase abortions, rather the exceptions will reduce women’s mortality.
Religious groups have been firm in their opposition to abortion in any form in the Dominican Republic. Polls show a majority of Dominicans favors the exceptions.
Article 37 in the 2015 Dominican Constitution reads: “Right to Life. The right to life is inviolable from conception to death.”
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Noticias SIN
2 February 2021