Latin America is divided. The reason: The emergency contraception pill (EC).
In 2008, the Constitutional Court of Chile banned the free distribution of the emergency contraception pill (EC) in the public health system. In Colombia, the high court Consejo de Estado ratified the government health agency INVIMA's authorization of importation and distribution of emergency contraception pills.
This year, Peruvian and Honduran legislators and judges continue to give opposing statements.
Last March, the Superior Court of Justice of Lima issued a sentence recognizing the right of all Peruvian women to have equal access to the EC, while rejecting a judicial request calling to stop the free distribution of EC by the Ministry of Health to poor women. Stopping its free distribution would be discriminatory, since the EC pills are sold to women who can afford the cost.
Meanwhile, on April 2, the Parliament of Honduras approved in just one plenary session a bill prohibiting the promotion, commercialization, free distribution and use of EC pills. The bill also prohibits the dissemination of information about the use of contraceptive pills like EC, and states that those who violate the bill will be subject to the punishments established for the crime of abortion.
The Penal Code establishes three to six years of prison for the agent (doctor, midwife, etc.) when abortion is practiced with woman's consent, six to eight years of prison without her consent and without violence or intimidation and eight to 10 years of prison when the agent uses violence and intimidation. Moreover, women are punished with three to six years in prison to consent an abortion.
According to Centro de Derechos de Mujeres (CDM),"the bill was approved without debate, in just one session, taking advantage of a circumstance where the national attention was focused in a football game," and it was voted in a plenary "with the participation of just 50 legislators."
The bill was submitted to the Parliament by female legislatorsNelly Jeréz (from the National Party) and Martha Lorena Alvarado (Liberal Party).
In a protest statement,a Honduran NGO asks, "How is it possible that two legislators, from their sectarian and fundamentalists visions, impose a legal act which will have dramatic consequences for millions of women, ignoring their sexual and reproductive rights, and their rights to be informed, to access medicines and to get timely and appropriate health care?"
Once again, the motivation of the legislators is that the belief that emergency contraception is an abortifacient, and therefore is against the national legislation, which penalizes abortion.
The pharmacies "are offering to our youth an abortive medicine, because it is made to be used after sexual relations, so it is not a normal contraceptive but an overdose of hormones, whose effects were analyzed by the Colegio Médico de Honduras (Medical College of Honduras) and declared as an abortive pill," Alvaro said to a local daily.
The World Health Organization (WHO) clearly explains that "Levonorgestrel emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs) have been shown to prevent ovulation and they did not have any detectable effect on the endometrium (uterine lining) or progesterone levels when given after ovulation. ECPs are not effective once the process of implantation has begun, and will not cause abortion."
The EC pill has been used by women who cannot face a pregnancy at a particular time in their lives. In such a way, EC avoids an undesirable pregnancy and even an unsafe abortion. The EC pill is also recommended for women who have been raped as long as the EC is used up to 72 hours after sexual intercourse.
Just in 2007, 4,000 instances of rape were reported to Honduran authorities. According to the National Survey on Demography and Health, the prevalence of women being abused since 12 years of age is close to 10percent.
The Consorcio Latinoamericano de Anticoncepción de Emergencia (CLAE) called the President of the Honduran Parliament and its legislators to revise their decision regarding the EC pill upon the international scientific evidence at the base of the WHO statement, which says the EC method is not abortive.
However, so far the Presidential veto would be the last thing to stop the bill.
The Red de Salud de las Mujeres Latinoamericanas y del Caribe and the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women's Rights, along with the CLAE and the CDM, issued a protest declaration in which these organizations underlined that the approved bill violates various international conventions signed by Honduras such as the Convention for the Children's Rights and the American Convention on Human Rights,and it infringes on Honduran public policies as well.
Soon after the bill was approved, the medicine's price increased and it is being sold by a clandestine market, according to local media.
