Ecuador abortion rights victory hailed as latest in ‘tidal wave’

Advocates say court ruling that decriminalises abortion in rape cases is an important step, but struggle continues.

By Vincent Ricci
7 May 2021

Quito, Ecuador – Women’s rights advocates have hailed a recent court ruling that will ease restrictions on abortion in cases of rape in Ecuador, the latest country in Latin America to be swept up in the “green wave” abortion rights movement.

In a 7-2 vote on April 28, the Constitutional Court of Ecuador deemed unconstitutional a previous ban that outlawed abortions except in cases where a woman’s life was in danger, or if a woman with a mental disability was raped.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/7/ecuador-abortion-rights-victory-hailed-as-latest-in-tidal-wave


Clashes erupt after Ecuador fails to decriminalize abortion for rape victims

Clashes erupt after Ecuador fails to decriminalize abortion for rape victims
Pro-choice activists say decision is a death sentence, after illegal abortions resulted in 15.6% of maternal deaths in 2014

Joe Parkin Daniels in Bogotá
Wed 18 Sep 2019

Clashes have erupted between pro-choice demonstrators and police outside Ecuador’s national assembly after lawmakers rejected a bill which would decriminalize abortion in cases of rape.

Abortion is illegal in Ecuador except in cases where the life of the mother is in danger, or if the pregnancy is the result of the rape of a woman with mental disabilities.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/sep/18/clashes-erupt-after-ecuador-fails-to-decriminalize-abortion-for-victims


Ecuador’s Crackdown on Abortion Is Putting Women in Jail

Ecuador’s Crackdown on Abortion Is Putting Women in Jail
For decades, abortion was considered a private matter. Now, a Nation investigation shows, women who terminate—or lose—pregnancies are facing prosecution and prison time.

By Zoë Carpenter
May 7, 2019 (May 20-27 Issue, The Nation)

Last year, a lawyer named Cristina Torres got a cryptic phone call from a young woman. The caller explained that she was contacting Torres on behalf of her mother, Sara (a pseudonym), who was imprisoned in the city of Latacunga, a windy crossroads on the Pan-American Highway, high on the volcanic plateau of central Ecuador. Sara was hoping to secure a form of legal relief that would allow her to serve part of her remaining sentence outside of detention. The woman asked Torres to take on her mother’s case—but as for the crime that Sara had been charged with, the daughter preferred not to speak of it. Just go visit my mother, she pleaded.

So Torres drove to Latacunga and, in the prison’s visiting room, met a tall woman with an upturned nose and honey-colored eyes. As Torres would learn, she’d had a difficult life. As a teenager, Sara said, she was raped by her aunt’s husband and became pregnant.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/ecuador-abortion-miscarriage-prosecution/


Ecuador – ‘Big step but not enough’: Ecuador debates easing abortion law in rape cases

'Big step but not enough': Ecuador debates easing abortion law in rape cases

Kimberley Brown
Mar 4, 2019

QUITO (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Gabriela doesn’t remember when she was raped, because she was passed out when it happened.

The 27-year-old Ecuadorian psychology student had been taking anti-depressants and sleeping pills on a regular basis. One night, when staying at a friend’s house, she took the usual combination that “makes me not feel a thing,” she said.

Continued: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ecuador-women-abortion/big-step-but-not-enough-ecuador-debates-easing-abortion-law-in-rape-cases-idUSKCN1QM0J9