DOMINICAN REPUBLIC：
CONGRESS REJECTS REGRESSIVE ABORTION REFORM

The Dominican Republic Congress is set to vote on July on a partial reform of the Penal Code related to abortion. Lawmakers must not allow a regression in women´s rights.

After recent presidential elections the Lower Chamber of the Dominican Parliament is once again considering reforms to the Criminal Code to decriminalize abortion where the pregnancy poses a risk to the life of a pregnant woman or girl, where the foetus would be unable to survive outside the womb, and where the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. The Lower Chamber is expected to vote between the 5 and 25 July. Previous efforts to enforce a similar proposal in 2014 were challenged later on in 2015 by conservative groups. A decision by the Constitutional Court declared the process unconstitutional and required Congress to follow the appropriate parliamentary procedure to enact revisions to the Criminal Code. This time, the Congress, Senate and President must all approve the reforms.

In the Dominican Republic, women and girls continue to die for preventable reasons due to the current total ban on abortion. This was the case for Rosaura Almonte, known by the media as “Esperancita”, who died in 2012 for not receiving life-saving chemotherapy for leukemia because she was seven weeks pregnant at the time and the treatment she needed would have affected the foetus she was carrying. Doctors delayed treating her because abortion, and those that facilitate abortion, can be criminally punished.

President Danilo Medina and legislators should maintain their previous stance on this issue and decriminalize abortion in the three circumstances accepted in 2014 as currently presented in the text for discussion. Any other action would constitute a regression in the rights of women and girls in the Dominican Republic.

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UA: 151/16 Index: AMR 27/4338/2016 Issue Date: 28 June 2016

The Dominican Republic Senate was due to vote on 25 July on a reform to the Criminal Code which maintains the criminalization of abortion except where the pregnancy poses a risk to the life of a pregnant woman or girl. Senators decided to send the text to the Human Rights Commission for further consideration.

On 19 July the House of Deputies (Cámara de Diputados), the lower chamber of the Dominican Congress, approved a new version of the Criminal Code that represents a step back for the rights of Dominican women and girls. This reform is a regression from the previous version of the Criminal Code adopted in 2014, as it now only allows abortion in one case: where the pregnancy poses a risk to the life of a pregnant woman or girl.

The Senate, the upper chamber of the Congress, was due to discuss and vote on the reform on 25 July, before the end of the current Parliamentary session. However, Senators voted to send the text to the Senate’s Justice and Human Rights Commission (Comisión de Justica y Derechos Humanos) for further consideration. The discussion of the bill will restart with a new congress in place on 16 August.

The newly elected Congresspersons must urgently reintroduce the three circumstances for decriminalization of abortion that were approved in 2014: where i) the pregnancy poses a risk to the life of a pregnant woman or girl; ii) where the foetus would be unable to survive outside the womb; iii) and where the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. Any other action would constitute a regression in the rights of women and girls.

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Further information on UA: 151/16 Index: AMR 27/4554/2016 Issue Date: 26 July 2016

In December 2016, the Dominican President rejected a regressive reform of the Criminal Code regarding abortion that had previously been adopted by the Senate. The President has returned the text to the Congress urging legislators to decriminalize abortion in the Dominican Republic. 

On 19 December 2016 President Danilo Medina vetoed a new version of the Criminal Code approved on 14 December by the Senate (upper chamber of the Dominican Congress) that represented a step back for the rights of Dominican women and girls. The text was previously approved by the Chamber of Deputies (lower chamber) in July. President Medina had rejected a similar reform proposed in 2014 and asked for decriminalization of abortion in limited circumstances in the country. His latest veto reaffirms his previous stance in favour of the rights of women and girls. 

In a letter sent to the President of the Senate, President Danilo Medina rejected the proposed reform and recommended that the Criminal Code clearly specify the situations which would represent exceptions to the criminalization of abortion: where pregnancy poses a risk to the life of a pregnant woman or girl, in cases where the foetus will be unable to survive outside the womb, and in cases where the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.

On 11 January 2017 the Senate appointed a nine-member Commission tasked with looking at the presidential observations and issuing a report within 15 days for the Senate to subsequently vote on. According to Art. 102 of the Dominican Constitution, the president’s observations can only be circumvented if both chambers of the Congress adopt the initial version with a majority of two-thirds of the members.

On 11 July, the Chamber of Deputies of the Dominican Congress voted to reject proposed reforms to the Criminal Code that failed to decriminalize abortion in limited circumstances and continued to violate the rights of women and girls. As a result, the proposed reforms cannot be made into law during the current legislative period.

In December 2016, President Danilo Medina vetoed a new version of the Dominican Republic’s Criminal Code, previously approved by Congress, that maintained the country’s complete ban on abortion with one exception: when the pregnancy poses a risk to life of the woman, and only after “all attempts had been made to save both the lives of the woman and the foetus.”

With his veto, the President submitted “observations” (recommendations) that the Criminal Code stipulate three specific exceptions to the criminalization of abortion: when a pregnancy poses a risk to the life of the woman or girl, when a pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, and in cases when the foetus will not survive outside the womb.

On 31 May 2017 the Dominican Senate (upper chamber of the Dominican Congress) voted to reject the President’s recommendations. The recommendations were then sent to the Justice Commission of the Chamber of Deputies (lower chamber of the Congress) for review, which presented a report to the Chamber also recommending the rejection of the Presidential observations. However, the Chamber voted on 11 July to reject the Justice Commission’s report by 84 votes to 63 (with 14 abstentions).

As a result of the Chamber’s vote, the proposed reforms to the Criminal Code rejecting the decriminalization of abortion cannot be passed during this legislative period. In the short term, this means that the country’s current Criminal Code, which dates back to 1884 and maintains a complete ban on abortion, will continue to be in effect. However, it also leaves the door open for the proposed reforms to the Criminal Code to be adopted during future legislative periods so that they include the three exceptions to the criminalization of abortion promulgated in the presidential observations. If the presidential recommendations are included in future reforms to the Criminal Code, then the Dominican Republic will take a large step forward towards guaranteeing the rights to life and health of women and girls.

No further action is required of the UA network for the time being. We will continue to monitor the situation and request further action when necessary. Many thanks to all those who have sent appeals.

This is the seventh update of UA 151/16. Further information: www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr27/6573/2017/en/

Further information on UA: 151/16 Index: AMR 27/6724/2017. Issue Date: 14 July 2017