Nicaragua Votes To Ban All Abortions

Nicaragua's Congress has voted to ban all abortions, despite the concerns of diplomats, doctors and women's rights advocates that the issue has become politicized ahead of presidential elections.

If signed into law by President Enrique Bolanos, the measure would eliminate a century-old exception to Nicaragua's abortion ban that permits the procedure if three doctors certify that a woman's health is at risk. Congress passed the bill Thursday.

The Managua-based Women's Autonomous Movement has said it is prepared to seek an injunction to block the measure.

The bill has the support of the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front, whose presidential candidate, Daniel Ortega, is trying not to alienate conservative voters in this predominantly Roman Catholic country ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

Bolanos has spoken out against abortions and proposed increasing prison sentences for women who have the procedure, as well as for those who assist them. Illegal abortions now carry a six-year prison term, and the president wants it increased to 10 to 30 years.

It was unclear whether Bolanos would sign the bill after lawmakers decided against increasing penalties. The president, who has 15 days to sign or throw out the bill, did not make any statements after the vote.

Congress approved the bill despite receiving a letter from EU diplomats and U.N. representatives urging them to hold off until after the election. U.N. Assistant Secretary General Rebeca Grynspan, who is in Nicaragua this week, also expressed concerns about the vote taking place before the elections.

Nicaragua's medical association urged legislators to postpone the vote as well, saying the issue had become politicized.

Ortega, who favored abortion rights as a young revolutionary, has said he has become a devout Roman Catholic and now opposes abortion. Some 85 percent of Nicaragua's 5 million people are Catholic.

Ortega headed the socialist Sandinista government of the 1980s and had a contentious relationship with the Catholic Church. But he has recently established warm ties with leading church figures in Nicaragua.

In 2003, Sandinista-backed women's groups helped a 9-year-old Nicaraguan girl who had been raped in Costa Rica return to her homeland to get an abortion, outraging the Roman Catholic Church.

Congressman Wilfredo Navarro, of the ruling Liberal Constitutionalist Party, said the exception to Nicaragua's ban has allowed women to persuade doctors to say falsely that an abortion was necessary for health reasons.

Aside from Cuba, which allows abortions during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, Latin America has some of the world's most restrictive abortion laws. El Salvador and Chile also ban abortions in all cases.

Most of the other countries in this heavily Roman Catholic region allow abortion when a woman's life is in danger but deny it to victims of rape or incest, according to the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights.

In May, Colombia's constitutional court legalized abortion in cases where fetuses were severely malformed, the pregnancy was the result of a rape or incest or the mother's life was in danger.

Around the world, more than a dozen countries have made it easier to get abortions in the past decade, and women from Mexico to Ireland have mounted court challenges to get access to the procedure.