Colombia’s Minister for Social Protection, Diego Palacio, announced that the government will not allow the use of abortion as a method of family planning, but would ensure that the practice is in line with the recent Constitutional Court ruling.
After the Constitutional Court ordered a national campaign to promote the sexual and reproductive rights of women, including the right to abortion in certain cases, Palacio said that in order to carry out special-circumstances abortions, judges, medical professionals, patients and members of related institutions would need to be appropriately trained and educated on the issue.
W Radio reported the Minister as saying that the process should be accelerated to comply with the Constitutional Court ruling, and to using it as an argument for conscientious objection from health institutions, who would refuse to abort even in the three permitted instances of rape, foetal malformation, or a life-threatening pregnancy to the mother.