Human rights and the right to abortion in Latin America

Résumé 0

"The scope of this study is to question the fact that in some countries in Latin America (Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras and the Dominican Republic) abortion is still forbidden in all situations. Even after all the debate on this thorny issue, the theory of human rights is not often used in the defense of abortion. This is cle- arly related to the pervasive, albeit unspoken be- lief that, due to their condition, pregnant women inherently lose their full human rights and should surrender and even give up their lives in favor of the unborn child. This article seeks to show that an adequate reading of the theory of human ri- ghts should include abortion rights through the first two trimesters of pregnancy, based on the fact that basic liberties can only be limited for the sake of liberty itself. It also seeks to respond to those who maintain that the abortion issue can- not be resolved since the exact point in the deve- lopment of the embryo that distinguishes legiti- mate from illegitimate abortion cannot be deter- mined. There are strong moral and scientific ar- guments for an approach capable of reducing un- certainty and establishing the basis for criminal law reforms that focus on the moral importance of trimester laws."