In 2006 abortion in Colombia was illegal. Colombia, however, was and is a party to international human rights conventions which are at odds with this law. The Women’s Link Worldwide (WLW) initiative launched legal action and a high profile campaign to highlight these inconsistencies with remarkable results: the law was overturned. Yet this alone was not enough. WLW stress how changes in law need to be accompanied by social mobilisation and strong accountability mechanisms to enforce the right to health in practice.
Social Protest, September 28th 2006
Abortion in Colombia was a criminal offence prior to 2006. Colombian official statistics at the time indicated that 350,000 clandestine abortions were carried out every year and were the third major cause of maternal deaths. At the same time as provisions in the Colombian Penal Code criminalised abortion, the country was (and is) a party to several international human rights treaties including: the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Colombia is also a party to the American Convention on Human Rights.
Mónica Roa, a Colombian attorney and Programmes Director for WLW, filed a complaint at the Constitutional Court in April 2005, arguing that Penal Code provisions on abortion were inconsistent with Colombia’s obligations pursuant to the international human rights treaties to which Colombia is a party.
At the same time, WLW and partners such as ‘La Mesa por la Vida y la Salud de las Mujeres (La Mesa)’ launched an intensive social mobilisation campaign. Both organisations recognised the important role of the media in disseminating information on the campaign to inform public debate. As a result, people heard many different voices: public health experts, doctors, members of the women’s movement and pro-choice Catholic women. Popular perception of the issue evolved and the level of debate matured. The debate became one based on public health and human rights, supported by scientific data, and moved away from a discussion about church doctrine.
The Constitutional Court handed down an historic decision on 10 May, 2006. The Court determined that Colombian legislation criminalising abortion was unconstitutional and women were entitled to a termination of pregnancy in three specific circumstances: when the pregnancy threatens the life or health of the woman; when there is malformation of the foetus which is incompatible with life outside the womb; and when the pregnancy is the result of rape, incest, or insemination or in-vitro fertilisation without consent. The Court acknowledged the reproductive rights of women and the implementation of international human rights in a national context.
The decision had an immediate effect. WLW worked in collaboration with La Mesa to lobby the Government to develop a policy which included clear and unambiguous rules regarding the provision of abortion services. The Government issued technical guidelines which follow the recommendations of the World Health Organization and in December 2006, the Government included abortion services as part of the services to be provided by the public health system.
Despite these changes over the last three years, recent events pose a threat to the ground-breaking decision of the Constitutional Court. The recently appointed Procurador General de la Nación, Alejandro Ordoñez, of the Oficina del Procurador General de la Nación, poses a grave threat to sexual and reproductive rights (especially the right to abortion) in Colombia as well as to gender equality and the division of church and state.
WLW and other civil society groups have begun to witness the results of the Procurador’s efforts to nullify the ground-breaking 2006 decision of the Constitutional Court. During October of this year, a new decision handed down by the Constitutional Court mandated, among other things, that information on the right to a legal abortion be included in the sex education curriculum in all schools. Since then, the Procurador has made an application for an injunction against the laws developed to implement the 2006 court decision. This application has been successful and as a result there is now a great deal of confusion over the status of the law and hence the right of women to access abortion services. WLW and others feel certain that the campaign of the Procurador and his supporters will soon include efforts to nullify the decision itself.
WLW and allies are monitoring the situation closely and are currently working on three new and different legal actions – each will be accompanied by a social accountability campaign. The first will focus on the fact that there currently exists a legal uncertainty that must be addressed immediately. The second will be about the unconstitutional actions of the Procurador that must be addressed by the Government. The final action will be about the confusion over the rights of women to access abortion services, created by this situation that must be resolved.
Accountability is an essential component of the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health (the right to health). There are five broad categories of accountability mechanisms: judicial, quasi-judicial, political, administrative and social. The WLW initiative in Colombia, that challenged the unconstitutionality of Colombian Penal Code provisions on abortion, demonstrates the use of accountability mechanisms to advance elements of the right to health strategically. At the same time, it shows that even when access to abortion is eventually guaranteed by the Constitution, access must be monitored constantly.
Even when rights are secured by a constitutional court decision, they are not necessarily guaranteed. The presence of a vibrant social accountability mechanism, working in tandem with other accountability mechanisms, is essential to ensure governments adhere to obligations to respect, protect and fulfill the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.
Mónica Roa – Women’s Link Worldwide
http://www.womenslinkworldwide.org
Helen Potts – Physicians for Human Rights
http://physiciansforhumanrights.org
Filed under: Rights to health
