The Right Comes for Puerto Rico’s Abortion Clinics

A conservative senator wants them criminally investigated

Susanne Ramírez de Arellano
Apr 29, 2026

SAN JUAN — A few months ago, I wrote that Puerto Rico had become the new battleground for women’s reproductive rights. Over the past year, there have been several attacks to restrict a woman’s right to choose. Just a few months ago, pro-statehood Partido Nuevo Progresista Governor Jenniffer González-Colón signed a law that gives fetuses legal personhood and classifies the death of an unborn child at any stage of pregnancy as murder.

I described these changes as dystopian and warned that, although abortion remains legal in Puerto Rico, women’s lives are at risk as even stricter restrictions loom.

Continued: https://thelatinonewsletter.org/p/right-comes-for-puerto-rico-abortion-clinics

Puerto Rico governor signs law to recognize fetus as human being as critics warn of consequences

By DÁNICA COTO
February 12, 2026

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico’s governor on Thursday signed a bill that amends a law to recognize a fetus as a human being, a move doctors and legal experts warn will have deep ramifications for the U.S. Caribbean territory.

The amendment was approved without public hearings and amid concerns from opponents who warned it would unleash confusion and affect how doctors and pregnant or potentially pregnant women are treated.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/puerto-rico-923-governor-signed-law-pregnancies-9d2f1fb895a17511a920cc42d480668e

12.02.2026

News

American Civil Liberties Union

Annette Martínez Orabona

Dr. Carlos Díaz Vélez

Jenniffer González

Keishla Rodríguez

Puerto Rico College of Medical Surgeons

Feminist backlash grows against Puerto Rico law threatening abortion rights

By EFE
27/12/2025

San Juan.— Feminist groups in Puerto Rico are mobilizing against a new law recognizing the unborn as a natural person, warning it could threaten abortion rights despite privacy protections.

The legislation was enacted this week by Governor Jenniffer González and has led to strong reactions from activists, legal experts, and medical professionals.

Continued: https://www.impactomedia.com/nacion/puerto-rico/feminist-backlash-grows-against-puerto-rico-law-threatening-abortion-rights/

27.12.2025

News

abortion law reform

Aborto Libre Puerto Rico

Alondra del Mar Hernández

Colectivo Ilé

María de Lourdes Santiago

New threats to abortion rights hit Puerto Rico as advocates share how to fight back

Abortion is legal in the U.S. territory, but a new wave of anti-abortion proponents are pushing for more restrictions, with some success

by Mariela Santos-Muñiz
March 20th, 2025

Nearly three years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, abortion rights across the country have been dangerously eroded. But the impact on reproductive rights didn’t affect just the 50 states: The case also altered the landscape in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory in the Caribbean made up of about 3.2 million people.

Reproductive rights are still intact in Puerto Rico, as there are legal grounds to support them. The Penal Code considers abortion a crime, but not if it’s performed in the interest of the pregnant person’s health, and the El Pueblo de Puerto Rico vs. Pablo Duarte Mendoza case established that that standard encompasses both the physical and mental health.

Continued: https://prismreports.org/2025/03/20/puerto-rico-abortion-advocates/

Puerto Rico – Anti-abortion centers without health regulations deceive those seeking abortion

Three anti-abortion centers advertise themselves as offering medical services, sonograms and information about abortions and abortion pills, even though they are not regulated by the Department of Health. People who come to their facilities, lured by confusing language, share their personal information, not knowing that they will then receive false information and multiple follow-up calls urging them to continue with a pregnancy they do not want.

Sept 26, 2024
Photos by Brandon Cruz González | Center for Investigative Journalism
by Cindy Burgos | ALL and Center for Investigative Journalism

They look like ordinary medical offices — with scrubs -clad employees offering free sonograms and pregnancy tests — but they are not. They are called “crisis pregnancy centers,” and while they promote themselves as places that provide scientific medical information about options for an unwanted pregnancy, in practice, they are anti-abortion centers that use techniques of deception, manipulation, incomplete or false information, and from a religious perspective, to convince pregnant people to continue with a pregnancy they do not want.

There are three such pseudoclinics in Puerto Rico: two Hope Women's Clinics in Río Piedras and Bayamón; and Centro Raquel in Carolina. All are located near or next to one of the four clinics in Puerto Rico that offer abortion services, an essential health procedure that can only be performed by a licensed physician.

Continued: https://periodismoinvestigativo.com/2024/09/centros-antiaborto-sin-regulacion-salud-puerto-rico/

Puerto Rico – The Abortion Haven That Wasn’t

Puerto Rico doesn’t restrict abortion. So why is it a struggle for locals to get one?

By Andrea González-Ramírez
December 12, 2022

It was raining despite the sun — the type of weather Boricuas make superstitious jokes about — on a recent Tuesday at Women’s Medical Pavilion, an abortion clinic in Puerto Rico. The eight patients seated around me in the waiting room looked at their phones in silence as a midday entertainment program played on a small TV. Nurses called them to the front desk one by one, referring to them as “mi amor” and “corazón” as they gave an overview of the 15-minute procedure. An abortion seeker seated to my right took a call and told the person on the other end of the line that she was hungry — it was nearly 1 p.m. — because the clinic had instructed her to not eat anything two hours before her visit. Plus, she said, she couldn’t afford to spend money on a meal — not even from the fast-food joint across the street from the clinic’s pink entrance.

Continued: https://www.thecut.com/2022/12/puerto-rico-is-an-abortion-haven-just-not-for-locals.html

Abortion access and funding have always been a struggle in U.S. territories

Access to abortion in U.S. territories post-Dobbs is just as difficult as before, and those concerns aren’t even a discussion within the mainstream reproductive rights movement

by Cecille Joan Avila
November 7th, 2022

In June, the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturned Roe v. Wade, effectively eliminating the federal right to abortion, but in Guam, it’s been four years since the last surgical abortion provider retired, leaving the small island territory without anyone who can perform the procedure. Pregnant people seeking an abortion can either receive abortifacients by mail, or, if they are beyond the timeframe where it’s possible to have a medication abortion, they have to travel to Hawai‘i. That is only feasible if they have the means to—and many do not.

For many in U.S. territories, getting an abortion hasn’t just depended on the procedure being legal. People have had to rely on community networks and whatever resources were available to get or pay for an abortion. The common factor is that in U.S. territories, they need to know the right people to ask for assistance, information, and resources, which is ultimately an unsustainable way to access a key component of reproductive health.

Continued: https://prismreports.org/2022/11/07/abortion-access-us-territories-struggle/

Abortion is legal but under threat in Puerto Rico

October 3, 2022
MAYA ROSENBERG

The day after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a representative in the Puerto Rican legislature introduced a bill punishing "the crime of abortion" with 99 years in jail.

The bill was withdrawn the same day it was introduced, but it represents renewed interest in greatly restricting abortion in Puerto Rico after the Supreme Court threw out its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that protected abortion rights.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/03/1125170596/abortion-puerto-rico-policy-opposition-rights

What to know about abortion laws in Puerto Rico, Guam and other U.S. territories

Ella Lee, Rachel Looker, USA TODAY
Aug. 11, 2022

The reproductive rights of Americans across the country were thrown into question with the Supreme Court's decision to dismantle the landmark case Roe v. Wade, which established the constitutional right to have an abortion. But people residing in the continental United States alone weren't the only U.S. citizens affected.

Without constitutional protection of abortion rights, the legislatures
of U.S. territories are able to decide for themselves whether abortion access
is guaranteed, and to what extent, unless Congress intervenes.

Continued: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/08/11/puerto-rico-guam-us-territories-abortion-rights-post-roe/10223844002/

Hundreds March in Puerto Rico in Defense of Abortion Rights

By: Carlos Edill Berríos Polanco
MAY 31, 2022

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A green wave of pro-choice demonstrators washed over Old San Juan on Saturday, May 28 —the International Day of Action for Women’s Health— to demand abortion rights be protected in the face of legislative attacks.

Following a leaked draft ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that signaled it was moving to overturn Roe v. Wade, and a push to limit abortion at 22 weeks by the Puerto Rico Life and Family Commission with Senate Project 693 (PS 693), pro-choice activists gathered in front of the Jose V. Toledo Courthouse in Old San Juan for a “Marea Verde por el Derecho a Decidir” (Green Wave for the Right to Decide) to protest against the assault on reproductive rights.

Continued: https://www.latinorebels.com/2022/05/31/prabortionmarch/