Colombia's top court split on removing abortion from penal code

Judges from Colombia’s top court were evenly split in a 4-4 vote on Thursday over whether abortion should be eliminated from the penal code, a coalition of pro-choice groups which brought the lawsuit told reporters.

Abortion was partially legalized in Colombia in 2006 under a ruling that allows it in cases of rape, fetal deformity and when the health of the mother is at risk. But according to estimates from pro-choice groups, around 90 percent of abortions throughout the northern Andean nation still take place clandestinely, Reuters reported. 

Causa Justa (Just Cause), a coalition of more than 90 pro-choice organizations, first brought the suit in 2020, saying prosecutions of women who sought or obtained abortions worsen the stigma and scare away potential patients, even in cases when the legal conditions for the procedure are met.

Yet while a ruling in favor of the elimination of abortion from the penal code would not widen the circumstances in which women and girls can seek abortions, it would guarantee that no more people are imprisoned, Causa Justa noted.

A ruling on the suit was originally expected late last year, but a ninth judge requested a recusal. The recusal was granted on Thursday and the court agreed to appoint a new ninth judge for an eventual re-vote, Causa Justa said.

Between 2006 and 2019, upwards of 350 women were convicted or sanctioned for seeking abortions, including at least 80 girls under the age of 18.

"The fact that abortion exists as a crime does not dissuade women from seeking an abortion, it just pushes them to seek clandestine and often unsafe abortions, putting their lives and health at risk," Catalina Martinez Coral, regional director of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said outside the court earlier on Thursday.

Anti-abortion groups and politicians in the broadly conservative country have urged justices to vote against elimination, saying abortion amounts to murder.