Dominican Penal Code: They use the case of a woman who died of cancer to include 3 causes of abortion

The director of 40 Days for Life of the Dominican Republic, Martharís Rivas Reyes, and the pediatrician-perinatologist Patricia Acra, denounced that during the public hearing of the Penal Code reform project, there was pressure to consider the decriminalization of abortion.

According to him half The nationduring the debate on July 25 before the special commission of the Dominican Chamber of Deputies, the Institutionality and Justice Foundation (Finjus) was the organization that advocated for the inclusion of three causes of abortion (risk of life for the mother, rape or incest or malformation of the fetus incompatible with life).

Rivas pointed out in an interview with ACI Prensa that, “once again, pressure groups have sought to manipulate” the case of “Esperancita”, a young pregnant woman who died due to leukemia, to achieve that with pressure from the Commission Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) decriminalizes abortion. “It is unfortunate that they use the death of a young woman who died of cancer, use it to manipulate society, and promote more death, with the three causes of the abortion business,” she said.

“Esperancita” is the pseudonym by which Rosaura Almonte Hernández is known, a 16-year-old girl who died on August 17, 2012 at the Medical Insurance Teaching Center (Semma) while receiving chemotherapy. The young woman was ten weeks pregnant, but she had a spontaneous abortion, suffered a pulmonary hemorrhage and died.

Since then, feminist groups have used the case to claim that the young woman died because she did not have an abortion. Currently, these pressures coincide with the debate on the reform of the Penal Code.

“I pray for the soul of ‘Esperancita’, because they have not let her rest in peace, using her sad story to promote the abortion business in the Dominican Republic, and we must pray for her mother, who does not understand why the abortion continues to be used. name of her daughter to justify that an abortion would have cured her of leukemia,” said Rivas.

Dr. Acra, who during the public hearing accessed “Esperancita’s” medical record including laboratory tests, biopsy, etc., wrote in a recent opinion column the most relevant thing about said case: “Already suspecting the diagnosis of malignancy based on the clinical picture, the hospital staff in charge of the case asks Esperancita’s mother, Mrs. Rosa Hernández, as well as her father, to sign a power of attorney to that the young Rosaura, already 9 weeks pregnant, can receive chemotherapy treatment knowing the risks that such treatment entails for the baby she was carrying, thus categorically demonstrating the doctor’s actions in cases of pregnancy in which the health of the mother is in danger of life: the health of the mother always takes precedence over the fate of the baby.”

And the doctor concludes: “Esperancita spontaneously loses her baby due to bleeding and dies as a result of the already irreversible discomfort of her oncological condition and its complications.”

Rivas added that “the fallacies on this issue are not a justification that should be used to promote abortion.”

About the Penal Code reform project

Although the Senate of the Dominican Republic approved on June 26 in first reading the draft Penal Code, which maintains the total prohibition of abortion in the country and establishes new criminal charges with penalties ranging between 30 and 40 years in prison, it must be dealt with by a new Congress and a new government as of August 16, since the last legislature of the parliamentary period ended on July 25.

In other words, the reform project, as in previous legislatures, did not advance. It remained stuck in the special commission in charge of its in-depth study and possible modifications, without being sanctioned in a second reading by the Chamber of Deputies.

“Senator Rogelio Genao commented that from the Senate Chamber he was going to submit it again. After studying, they are going to deliver a document with the recommendations according to the public hearings,” Rivas indicated.

“This document is going to be important because, if they are going to make any changes, they are going to take it into account in the Chamber of Deputies. Since it is going to die, it will no longer be possible to promulgate or do anything. Then, the Senate could take that into account for the next legislature, or the same deputies for the next legislature. We have to see what is going to be done,” he highlighted.

The Penal Code, in force since 1884, criminalizes abortion in any circumstance in the Dominican Republic, making it one of the six countries in Latin America that maintains a total prohibition of this practice along with El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti and Suriname.