Colombian Court Rejects Suit Aimed At Legalizing Abortion

By C-FAM Staff

    (NEW YORK — C-FAM) The government of Colombia's high court announced last week they would not rule in a lawsuit that sought to change the South American country's laws forbidding abortion. The court's decision is a severe blow to an international coalition of pro-abortion organizations that was behind the lawsuit.

    Colombia's Constitutional Court said the suit presented by Madrid based lawyer Monica Roa did not contain sufficient arguments and failed to meet some legal standards. The suit was based in part on Colombia's ratification of two UN documents, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the International Covenant on Political and Civil Rights.

    A Colombian pro-life organization, Red Futoro Colombia, said in a statement that the suit failed in part because it sought to decriminalize abortion in all instances. According to the statement, media reports made it seem as if the suit sought only to legalize abortion in cases of rape, when the health of the mother is threatened, and when the unborn baby suffers from a sickness that would result in the death of the child within days of delivery. But according to Red Futoro those three cases were only "a subsidiary request" to the lawsuit. "There was an attempt to focus the attention of public opinion and of the court itself on those extreme cases and the complaint argued as such, making mistakes and creating a series of incongruities such as those pointed out by the justices. This and other errors within the complaint were appropriately pointed out by various citizen presentations in the process," according to Red Futoro.

    Women's Link Worldwide, the organization that spearheaded the suit, announced they had filed a second suit that they believed would address the legal concerns of the Colombia's Constitutional Court. "We have adjusted this new suit to address all of the questions from the Constitutional Court. We are in a race against the clock. It wouldn't be right for the country to go on holiday while women are still dying. To delay this decision any further would be an unconscionable act and negligent to the extreme," Roa said.

    Red Futoro said the attention brought on by the suit, first filed in April, was good for the pro-life cause. "The public debate generated around the issue is a gain for the defense of life. We have continually shown how it was managed through a manipulation of sentiments, with false arguments that repeatedly diverted attention from the fundamental point of discussion: the inviolable right to life. This very intent to distract was the cause of the complaint's failure."

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