Episode Description:
In today’s episode, we talk about a bill that is expected to be signed into law by Guatemala’s conservative president within weeks… if passed it would impose the harshest punishments for abortion of almost any country in Latin America.
Opening statement:
Women’s access to abortion continues to be debated around the globe… Latin America especially… is home to some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the world.
while some Latin American countries have taken action under heavy pressure from women’s rights activists…like…Mexico in 2021…where their supreme court issued a historic decision that decriminalized abortion…or in Colombia…where the country’s top court decriminalized abortion in 2022… making it the third major Latin American nation to allow access to the procedure. or Argentina in 2020…where it became the largest nation in Latin America to legalize abortion…in other parts of Latin America…developments are less encouraging.
Topic 1: Background on bill
According to a New York Times article, last Tuesday on international women’s day, Guatemalan lawmakers passed a new bill mandating up to 10 years of jail time for women who obtain abortions, explicitly banning same-sex marriage and preventing schools from teaching about sexual diversity.
under the measure, schools would not be allowed to teach that gay or lesbian sex is normal or discuss LGBTQ issues with children and teenagers. the bill even explicitly codifies marriage as being between “a man and a woman.”
if this bill, as expected, becomes law, Guatemala would have among the most severe penalties for women who seek abortions in the region, even when compared to its conservative neighbors.
take Honduras as an example. last year, Honduras approved an amendment that would make it all but impossible to repeal articles of the constitution that prohibit abortion and make same-sex marriage illegal.
in El Salvador, abortion is illegal under all circumstances, including rape. gay marriage is forbidden and there is no legal gender recognition for trans people.
even then, Honduras and El Salvador offer limited protections for LGTBQ people, including laws that punish hate crimes on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. while according to Mr. Gonzalez, a human rights watch researcher…Guatemala has none.
Topic 2: Human rights activists & criticism
Human rights groups warned that the measure would most likely spur more women to seek abortion in unsafe settings, driving up maternal deaths.
it was even greeted with mixed reactions from anti-abortion activists in Guatemala saying that “while [their] group supported harsher penalties for abortion providers, increasing penalties for women who undergo the procedure made less sense”
Guatemala allows abortion only to save the life of the mother, but this new bill would even add restrictions in those cases, too.
the bill imposes a sentence of up to 12 years for the doctors who perform the procedure…and the doctors that would provide an abortion to a woman at risk of death will now have to get another physician to agree that the procedure is necessary.
this is a significant hurdle because Guatemala is already a country where there aren’t many medical professionals, to begin with.
Topic 3: why this is happening
According to analysts, the reason why president Alejandro Giammattei is leaning even further to the right on abortion could partly be a play to shore up political challenges at home, and the rising tensions in his relationship with the united states.
Mr. Giammattei for those who aren’t aware is deeply unpopular in Guatemala, this is largely due to losing a lot of trust from the public due to high-profile corruption investigations that have been done within his inner circle.
it was only last year when prosecutors opened an inquiry into allegations that the Guatemalan president accepted bribes from the Russian businessmen in exchange for access to a key port.
his attorney general has also continued to undermine the nation’s judiciary, by detaining former prosecutors and targeting a judge handling the nation’s most sensitive corruption cases.
according to the analysts, this bill is him reaching out and trying to amplify his base when he is increasingly weak and isolated, and increasingly in confrontation with the Biden administration.
Mr. Giammattei even went as far as participating in a ceremony declaring Guatemala the “pro-life capital” of Latin America… while also joined by representatives of the family research council, a prominent evangelical group based in Washington.
the end
That is all for today on the LEO podcast. I’m Kevin Muñoz and for those of you on Patreon, as always, I’ll see you in the bonus episodes.
otherwise, I will see you in the next episode, and feel free to send me a message with your thoughts or with any interesting topic that you’d like to see covered.
sources:
• https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/09/world/americas/guatemala-abortion-prison.html
• https://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/wrd/wrd0106/index_old2384523.htm
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/reproductive_rights_in_latin_america#:~:text=in%20latin%20america%20abortion%20is,in%20case%20of%20rape%3a%20brazil
