Days earlier the court had recused itself on a related lawsuit stating that the plaintiffs had not presented their case clearly enough. That suit asked that exceptions be made in the penal code in cases of rape, when the woman’s health is at risk, and when the fetus is deemed nonviable. It also demanded that in such cases women be given access to a legal and safe abortion.

In refiling the lawsuit on behalf of Women’s Link Worldwide, Roa explained it would be up to the court to rule on exceptions to the laws that make abortion a crime. A woman who undergoes an abortion can face up to 54 months in jail. Abortion rights activists say that most women convicted are put under temporary house arrest or receive suspended sentences.

“The problem with illegal abortions is not that women go to jail,” Roa says. “The problem is that they die.”

From the moment the initial lawsuit was filed in April 2005, it became part of a broader debate throughout Latin America and the Caribbean where abortion is illegal. Available on demand only in Cuba, abortion is also legal in French Guiana and in Guyana. Abortion is not a crime in Puerto Rico, whose colonial status means U.S. law applies. Of the remaining 29 countries, accounting for 97 percent of the region’s 543 million inhabitants, about half have highly restrictive abortion laws, allowing it for the most part only when the woman’s health or life is at risk. As in Colombia, abortion is illegal under all circumstances in Chile, El Salvador, Honduras, and Suriname.

Four million abortions are carried out annually throughout Latin America, according to the United Nations. Most are performed under unsanitary conditions, with an estimated 5,000 women dying each year from complications during the procedure. Working-class women are most affected, because they cannot afford to travel abroad or pay to have one done in a safe environment.

In Colombia alone more than 300,000 abortions are performed yearly. According to polls, one in five women has had an abortion, and of these over 40 percent are said to have had more than one.

Since the 1980s, Washington has used its “Mexico City policy” to blackmail organizations abroad that advocate decriminalization or simply provide abortion counseling, with threats to cut any U.S. financial aid.

Reproductive rights mobilizations in the region have increased in recent years, with decriminalization as the central demand. Bills are being introduced in parliaments with the same goal. At the end of November, for instance, the Brazilian legislature initiated debate on such a bill. Its supporters stress it must be seen as part of a broader program to include family planning, sex education, and abortion procedures provided at public hospitals.

In Venezuela, recently reelected deputy Cilia Flores said a debate on decriminalizing abortion would be high on the agenda of the incoming National Assembly.
 
 
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Backers of a woman’s right to choose abortion mark 33rd anniversary of ‘Roe v. Wade’  
 
 
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