Chilean President Michelle Bachelet Pushes Abortion Legalization Bill

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet unveiled on Wednesday a bill that would legalize abortion under three circumstances: if the life of the mother is put at risk, if the fetus is inviable -- meaning it’s unlikely to survive outside of the uterus -- or in the case of rape. The following day, during a call to Chile’s parliament to pass the bill, Bachelet defended it from the attacks of conservative lawmakers, saying she considered the question “a problem of public health."

Chile is one of Latin America’s most conservative countries on the issue: Abortion is banned there without exception, even in the event that the mother’s life is at risk. Only the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua have similarly restrictive legal codes, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights. That’s not to say women still don’t undergo them. Chile’s public health ministry says somewhere between 60,000 and 150,000 clandestine abortions are performed every year.

“Periodically we hear in the news cases of women who have clandestine abortions which put their life at risk and which undoubtedly cause them great pain and anguish,” Bachelet said. “Chile must face this reality with a mature, informed and propositional discussion, and debate in the National Congress a law project to decriminalize the voluntary interruption of pregnancy in cases of rape, risk of the mother’s life and unviability of the fetus.”