Time for Congress to nix ‘double standard’ on abortion

Santo Domingo.- Women’s rights organizations onTuesday said the time has come for theSenate to pass a bill decriminalizing abortion when it’s a special pregnancy.

Women minister Janet Camilo said pregnancymust be interrupted when the woman’s life is at risk, when it’s the result ofrape or incest and when the fetus is malformed to the point it wouldn’t survivebeyond birth.

She said the legislators must set "doublestandards" aside. "While many poor women die in the country as resultof the current law, men of power pay trips to Puerto Rico where their lovers undergoabortions. We hope Congress won’t act with that double standard with which manyplayers Dominican society usually act."

Because they don’t support it publicly, butsecretly, men of power are the very ones which send lovers, mistresses and eventheir daughters to have abortions in Puerto Rico, a country where abortion hasbeen decriminalized for years," the official said.

Camilo said after president Danilo Medina returnedthe Penal Code to the Senate to be studied and could include three exceptions, lawmakersare negotiating with key stakeholders, "under the understanding that thisis a public health issue, not an issue of religion or politics, since itaffects all Dominicans."