Honduras Ends Ban on Emergency Contraception: A Significant Leap in Protecting Women’s Rights

ROME – To date, Honduras has been the only country in Latin America to ban emergency contraception, or drugs that can block a pregnancy after unprotected sex. The same ones that are already on the list of essential medicines of theWorld Health Organization (WHO). After the 2009 coup against then-President Manuel Zelaya, the government banned the so-called morning-after pill. Another example of how authoritarian governments undermine women’s rights, including reproductive rights, she writes Human Rights Watch (HRW).

HRW’s research. In 2019, the organization documented how the total ban on abortion and emergency contraception put women’s health and lives at risk on a daily basis. And she urged President Castro, after his electoral victory in 2022, to introduce legislation to decriminalize abortion, repeal the ban on emergency contraception and ensure that these drugs were available to all. In December 2022, the Castro administration approved a protocol allowing the use of the morning-after pill for victims of sexual assault.

Abortion remains illegal. Last week’s announcement, made on International Women’s Day, was the result of years of battles by feminist organizations in Honduras. A small step forward for the protection of women’s rights, including reproductive rights, even if abortion is still illegal in the country, even in cases of rape. The penalties reach up to six years in prison both for those who obtain an abortion and for doctors who practice it clandestinely.

The history of La Línea. She was a resource for the women of Honduras, a point of reference. Cited quietly in the universities or high schools of Tegucigalpa, La Línea was one of the few tools through which women could get information about abortion. But at the end of August 2018, the phone line stopped working. The women in La Línea were all volunteers, they worked in secret, taking responsibility for what they did. Risks included, because abortion is still a highly controversial issue in the country. However, after spending two years providing information on abortion, the staff decided it needed to reach more women. That August, therefore, the volunteers tried to place an advertisement in the newspaper La Tribuna, which however refused to publish it. Shortly thereafter, the organization’s cell phone stopped working.

Violence against women. Honduras has one of the highest homicide rates in the world. Every twenty-two hours a woman is killed, according to a survey conducted by the country’s Autonomous University. There is no updated data, but according to a national survey dating back to 2011-2012, almost one in four women has experienced physical or sexual abuse from a partner. At least 40 percent of pregnancies are unplanned or unwanted, including as a result of rape. More than thirty thousand adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19 become pregnant every year. The issue is that not all of them complete it and often resort to clandestine abortion, with even fatal consequences for their lives.

Incidence of clandestine abortions in Honduras. There are no precise and updated data on how many abortions occur each year in the country – comments Human Rights Watch – but the non-governmental organization Centro de Derechos de Mujeres estimates that between 50,000 and 80,000 abortions occur.

The witness. Regina Fonseca is the founder and coordinator of Centro de Derechos de Mujeres (CDM). And he has collected many stories of women victims of the abortion ban. For example, Fonseca told HRW researchers about an indigenous woman who was raped by two men, apparently in an act of revenge against her father who would not give up his land. She had to keep her child, raise him alone because her husband left her and her rapists only served three months in prison. A second woman mentioned by Fonseca was also denied an abortion, despite the fact that the doctors said that the fetus was suffering from a serious brain disease and would die immediately after giving birth.

The cost of medicines. Those that cause abortion are not found, and when they are found they are too expensive. According to Fonseca, women can pay them from 61 to 285 dollars: an unsustainable sum for one of the poorest countries in Latin America, where almost a third of the population lives on less than 3.20 dollars a day.