Abortion in Paraguay is illegal except in case of the threat to the life of the woman. [1] Anyone who performs an abortion can be sentenced to 15 to 30 months in prison. If the abortion is done without the consent of the woman, the punishment is increased to 2 to 5 years. If the death of the woman occurred as a result of the abortion, the person who did the procedure can be sentenced to 4 to 6 years in prison, and 5 to 10 years in cases in which she did not consent. [1] In Paraguay, 23 out of 100 deaths of young women are the result of illegal abortions. [2] Concerning this death rate, Paraguay has one of the highest in the region. [2]
In April 2015, a story about a 10-year-old Paraguayan girl who was 22 weeks pregnant as a result of having allegedly been raped and impregnated by her stepfather came to light. [3] The pregnancy had been discovered that same month after the girl's mother brought her to a local hospital for abdominal pain, which was found to have been related to the pregnancy. Calls from her mother as well as outraged members of the public throughout the world for permission to allow the girl to undergo an abortion procedure were ultimately denied. The girl gave birth to the child via a caesarean section in a Red Cross hospital in Paraguay's capital city of Asunción later that year. [3] The girl's stepfather has since been prosecuted for the rape and her mother had also been charged with negligence for her alleged role in the circumstances surrounding the rape and pregnancy of her daughter. The high-profile nature of this case has led opposition leftist parties to push for less restrictive abortion laws in Paraguay, such as in cases of child pregnancies and in cases of sexual assault. [3] The United Nations has found that the maternal death rate is four times higher for girls under the age of 16 in Latin America. [3] The 10-year-old girl reportedly survived the birth, and her mother and grandmother both requested legal custody of the newborn child. [3]
Abortion in Germany is illegal, but not punishable during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy under the condition of mandatory counseling, and it is permitted later in pregnancy in cases that the pregnancy poses an important danger to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman. In the case that the abortion is because of rape it is legal in the first 12 weeks without mandatory counseling. Otherwise in the illegal, but not punishable case, the woman needs to receive counseling, called Schwangerschaftskonfliktberatung, at least three days prior to the abortion and must take place at a state-approved centre, which afterwards gives the applicant a Beratungsschein. Abortions that do not meet these conditions are punishable.
Attorney General v X, [1992] IESC 1; [1992] 1 IR 1, was a landmark Irish Supreme Court case which established the right of Irish women to an abortion if a pregnant woman's life was at risk because of pregnancy, including the risk of suicide.
Many jurisdictions have laws applying to minors and abortion. These parental involvement laws require that one or more parents consent or be informed before their minor daughter may legally have an abortion.
Mary Anne "Mamie" Cadden was an American-born Irish midwife, backstreet abortionist, and convicted murderer. She was born 27 October 1891 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Irish parents Patrick and Mary Cadden. In 1895, Cadden and her family returned to Lahardane in County Mayo, Ireland, where she completed years of schooling. Once she obtained her spot on the list of licensed midwives in Dublin, she opened a series of maternity nursing homes to aid women with health issues and to perform illegal abortions. After a series of criminal convictions, Cadden lost her status as a licensed midwife. In 1944, Cadden was charged and convicted for the murder of 33-year-old Helen O'Reilly. She was sentenced to life in prison, and after a year at Mountjoy prison, she was declared insane and moved to the criminal lunatic asylum Dundrum, where she died of a heart attack on 20 April 1959. Although many people committed backstreet abortions during the period of Cadden's life, Cadden was the only person in Ireland to be sentenced to the death penalty for a maternal death occurring as a result of an abortion. As the most notorious Irish abortionist of her era, the term 'Nurse Cadden' was synonymous with evil in the Irish public's mind.
Abortion in Argentina is legal as an elective medical procedure during the first 14 weeks from conception. The abortion law was liberalized after the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy Bill (Argentina) was passed by the National Congress in December 2020. According to the law, any woman can request the procedure at any public or private health facility. Doctors are legally bound to either perform it or, if they are conscientious objectors, refer the patient to another physician or health facility. Only three other Latin or South American countries legalised abortion on request nationwide before Argentina did: Cuba in 1965, Guyana in 1995 and Uruguay in 2012. According to polling in 2021, around 44% of Argentines support the legalization of abortion on request; other polls showed 50–60% of Argentines opposed the bill.
Abortion in Nicaragua is completely illegal. Prior to a change in the law, which took effect on 18 November 2006, the law allowed pregnancies to be terminated for "therapeutic" reasons, but this clause is no longer in effect.
Abortion in El Salvador is illegal. The law formerly permitted an abortion to be performed under some limited circumstances, but in 1998 all exceptions were removed when a new abortion law went into effect.
Abortion in India has been legal under various circumstances with the introduction of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971. The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Regulations, 2003 were issued under the Act to enable women to access safe and legal abortion services.
Abortion in Colombia is freely available on request up to the 24th week of pregnancy, due to a ruling by the Constitutional Court on February 21, 2022. Later in pregnancy, it is only allowed in cases of risk of death to the mother, fetal malformation, or rape, according to a Constitutional Court ruling in 2006.
Abortion in Panama is illegal except in instances that the pregnancy is life-threatening or the health of the woman is at risk, or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.
Abortion in Venezuela is currently illegal except in some specific cases outlined in the Venezuelan Constitution, and the country has one of Latin America's most restrictive laws.
Abortion in Namibia is restricted under the Abortion and Sterilisation Act of South Africa (1975), which Namibia inherited at the time of Independence from South Africa in March 1990. The act only allows for the termination of a pregnancy in cases of serious threat to the maternal or fetal health or when the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest. This law has not been updated since, and attempts to liberalise it have been met with fierce opposition from religious and women's groups.
Abortion in Denmark was fully legalized on 1 October 1973, allowing the procedure to be done electively if a woman's pregnancy has not exceeded its 12th week. Under Danish law, the patient must be over the age of 18 to decide on an abortion alone; parental consent is required for minors, except in special circumstances. An abortion can be performed after 12 weeks if the woman's life or health are in danger. A woman may also be granted an authorization to abort after 12 weeks if certain circumstances are proved to be present ..
Abortion in Zimbabwe is available under limited circumstances. Zimbabwe's current abortion law, the Termination of Pregnancy Act, was enacted by Rhodesia's white minority government in 1977. The law permits abortion if the pregnancy endangers the life of the woman or threatens to permanently impair her physical health, if the child may be born with serious physical or mental defects, or if the fetus was conceived as a result of rape or incest. Nevertheless, an estimated 70,000+ illegal abortions are performed in Zimbabwe each year, resulting in around 20,000 maternal deaths.
Abortion in Costa Rica is severely restricted by criminal law. Currently, abortions are allowed in Costa Rica only in order to preserve the life or physical health of the woman. Abortions are illegal in almost all cases, including when the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest and when the foetus suffers from medical problems or birth defects. Both social and economic factors have led to this legal status. It remains unclear whether abortions are legal to preserve the mental health of the woman, though the 2013 United Nations abortion report says Costa Rica does allow abortions concerning the mental health of a woman.
Pregnancy is a potential result of rape. It has been studied in the context of war, particularly as a tool for genocide, as well as in other unrelated contexts, such as rape by a stranger, statutory rape, incest, and underage pregnancy. The current scientific consensus is that rape is at least as likely to lead to pregnancy as consensual sexual intercourse, with some studies suggesting rape may actually result in higher rates of pregnancy than consensual intercourse.
Abortion-rights movements, also self-styled as pro-choice movements, advocate for the right to have legal access to induced abortion services including elective abortion. They seek to represent and support women who wish to terminate their pregnancy without fear of legal or social backlash. These movements are in direct opposition to anti-abortion movements.
Abortion in Samoa is only legal if the abortion will save the mother's life or preserve her physical or mental health and only when the gestation period is less than 20 weeks. In Samoa, if an abortion is performed on a woman for any other reason, or if a woman performs a self-induced abortion, the violator is subject to seven years in prison.
As of 2023, Abortion is currently illegal in Indiana, with exceptions for fatal fetal abnormalities, to preserve the life and physical health of the mother, or in cases of rape or incest. Previously abortion in Indiana was legal up to 20 weeks; a near-total ban that was scheduled to take effect on August 1 was placed on hold due to further legal challenges, but is set to take place, after the Indiana Supreme Court denied an appeal by the ACLU, and once it certifies a previous ruling, that an abortion ban doesn't violate the state constitution. In the wake of the 2022 Dobbs Supreme Court ruling, abortion in Indiana remained legal despite Indiana lawmakers voting in favor of a near-total abortion ban on August 5, 2022. Governor Eric Holcomb signed this bill into law the same day. The new law became effective on September 15, 2022. But on September 22, 2022, Special Judge Kelsey B. Hanlon of the Monroe County Circuit Court granted a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of the ban. Her ruling allows the state's previous abortion law, which allows abortions up to 20 weeks after fertilization with exceptions for rape and incest, to remain in effect.
Rex v Bourne, The King v Aleck Bourne, or the Bourne Judgment, was a British landmark court case in 1938 relating to an abortion performed by obstetric surgeon Aleck Bourne on a 14-year-old girl who had become pregnant as a result of being raped. The judge directed the jury towards the concept that situations arise where abortion might protect the health of the mother. Bourne was found not guilty of performing the procedure unlawfully and the judgment set the precedence for several subsequent abortion cases and the Abortion Act 1967 (UK).
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