Distinguished pro-life leaders from the International Right to Life Federation, including SPUC’s Chief Executive John Smeaton, have congratulated key Honduran legislators who last week secured the future of the country’s unborn by amending the constitution to require a three-quarter majority vote to pass any abortion legislation.
“What you are clearly and prophetically saying is that only moral absolutes, reflected in national and international law, can really protect society’s weakest and most vulnerable human beings”, said Mr Smeaton.
Last week, the Honduran Congress ratified its “Shield Against Abortion in Honduras” reform, an amendment to the country’s constitution to require a three-quarters vote in favour of modifying the country’s abortion laws.
The reform makes any attempt to legalise abortion in Honduras much more difficult, with 96 deputies out of 128 now being required to introduce pro-abortion legislation.
A “historic achievement”
Mario Pérez, a member of the ruling conservative National Party who tabled the reform, was one of the legislators congratulated by the International Right to Life Federation.
Mr Smeaton wrote to Mr Pérez among others “with profound esteem and thankfulness to congratulate you on your historic achievement in reaffirming and strengthening your already powerful legal protection for unborn children in Honduras”.
Advocating for a “constitutional lock” on abortion, Pérez said before the vote that “this reform arises from the wave of constitutional reforms in Latin American countries, promoted by leftist governments led to legalize abortion, as happened in Argentina recently, and that cannot be allowed in Honduras”.
Article 67
As a result of the amendment, Article 67 of the constitution now states that “The unborn shall be considered as born for all rights accorded within the limits established by law. It is prohibited and illegal for the mother or a third party to practice any form of interruption of life on the unborn, whose life must be respected from conception.”
Championed by Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez’s National Party, the reform passed its first vote on 21 January by 88-28, as reported by SPUC. It was then ratified on 28 January when 90 votes were registered in favour of the bill.
International groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Oxfam, as well as United Nations “human rights experts”, condemned the reform.
As a SPUC spokesperson said at the time, however: “The notion that abortion is a ‘human right’ and that it is good for women is obscene and hypocritical.”
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