This Wednesday marks the global day of action for access to legal and safe abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean, and for feminist movements in Colombia it is a special date because it is the first time they have celebrated it with a huge victory.
Last February, the Constitutional Court decriminalized abortion up to the 24th week of gestation, a judicial decision that unleashed enormous social transformations and new challenges.
In these seven months, health-providing institutions have been adapting their protocols so that women who want to interrupt their pregnancy can access an abortion more quickly—the figures reveal that most of them have been able to access one in the first weeks of gestation.
Contrary to what the anti-abortion movements said,
over 90% of women do not wait until week 24 to terminate their pregnancy.
However, there are still several challenges ahead, such as misinformation in healthcare providers or among gynecologists, or the xenophobia that Venezuelan women face when seeking an abortion.
Finally, although abortion was legally decriminalized, there is still a long way to go to decriminalize it socially and culturally.
Subscribe here
to the EL PAÍS newsletter on Colombia and receive all the key information on the country's current affairs.
/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/2XWZK2SNNVHNTOU6DYROGV3XVI.jpg)
