President Tabaré Vázquez vetoed a bill that would have legalized abortion in Uruguay. Photo: Presidencia de la Republica Oriental del Uruguay

President Tabaré Vázquez used his veto pen to stop a bill that would have legalized abortion in Uruguay, keeping the procedure illegal.

Uruguay has been secular for much of its history, unlike many other Latin American nations. The bill had passed in the Uruguayan House and Senate, but parliament did not gain the three-fifths support necessary to override Vázquez ’s veto. The president, a doctor, cited “the reality of the existence of human life in the gestation period” in his explanation for the veto.

Benjamin Gedan is a Fulbright research scholar living in Montevideo and studying the Uruguayan media. He writes at his blog, “Small State,” about the ongoing Uruguayan abortion debate.

In secular Uruguay, abortion still a criminal act

At first glance, the decision by Uruguayan President Tabaré Vázquez to veto legislation legalizing abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy is surprising. After all, the president’s own party, the Frente Amplio, promoted the legislation in both the House and Senate. The very fact that abortion is illegal in Uruguay, by far the most secular country in Latin America, seems out of place. For example, in Mexico, where the Catholic Church is far more influential, the capital city legalized abortion in April 2007.

But what seems clear is that Uruguayans are far more comfortable skipping out on church on Sunday than accepting abortion. A recent poll by Interconsult found that only 57 percent of Uruguayans support the legalization of abortion, the BBC reported.

In a statement, Vázquez framed his objections in secular terms: “Los derechos son la ética de la democracia, la vida de todos es el bien primero por el que deben velar los gobiernos democráticos” (”Legal rights are the ethics of democracy, and human life is the primary object that democratic governments should value”). But as my Fulbright colleague and guest-blogger Todd Martinez has observed, Uruguayans, though hardly churchgoers, are not exactly atheists either. Read Todd’s take on the abortion debate here.

I’ve heard that Vázquez may ultimately come out in favor of a referendum on the abortion issue, or simply leave the issue to the next president. If the Frente Amplio wins the presidency for the second time and keeps control of Congress, Uruguay may very well end up with an abortion law that matches its global image. For now, however, women who have an abortion and the doctors who help them still face prison, and abortion is only allowed in cases of rape or if the life of the mother is in danger.

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The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

People protest against pornography in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia.

Robin Bush is The Asia Foundation’s deputy country representative in Indonesia and writes for their blog, In Asia. She is the author of the essay “Regional Sharia Regulations in Indonesia: Anomaly or Symptom?”

Fighting for Indonesia’s Cultural Diversity

Indonesia’s rich cultural diversity is on display in full force once again this week as activists, intellectuals, dancing musicians, and women dressed in brightly colored lace dresses have taken to the streets to protest a shoddy piece of legislation that just won’t go away. The poorly-named “Anti-Pornography Bill” was first introduced by legislators in early 2006. After nearly a year of protest, heated debate, demonstrations, and conflict, the bill was sent to committee where it essentially got shelved until a couple of weeks ago when a legislator from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) decided to revive it as what he called a “Ramadan gift” for Indonesia.

But Indonesian women’s groups, cultural groups, and civil society have rejected the “gift” in no uncertain terms. Detractors of the bill reject it on the following grounds: (1) it is badly written legislation and its terms are poorly defined, (2) it duplicates existing protective legislation in the criminal code that outlaws pornography and, especially, protects children; (3) it criminalizes artistic and cultural expression that is part of Indonesia’s diverse ethnic heritage; (4) it wasn’t one of the 286 bills that the Parliament was scheduled to decide on in this session – out of which they have only produced 124 pieces of legislation.

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Photo courtesy of Flickr user squid697 under a Creative Commons license.

Proposal for amendment to allow Uribe term hits Congress this week

The legislation in question would, if passed, lead to a referendum on whether or not the constitution would be amended to allow sitting President Álvaro Uribe to stand for a third term at the polls. I have not read the text of the legislation, but assume it removes the current two-term limit and makes it a three-term limit, although I am not certain of that at this point. For those unfamiliar with Colombian politics, it should be noted that Uribe came to office in 2002 under a one term-limit, but the constitution was amended during his first four-year term to a two-term limit. Uribe handily won re-election in 2006 and currently is slated to leave office in 2010.

One of the more interesting aspects of this situation (to me, anyway, as a student of Colombian parties) is that while Uribe has majority support in the Congress, it is based on a coalition of parties, and the drive for a third term has been driven by only one, the Party of National Social Unity, known colloquially as the “Partido de la U” (for the “Unity” part, but the fact that Uribe’s last name start with a “u” is no coincidence).

One of the partners in the pro-Uribe bloc is the Conservative Party (PC), which, as I noted a while back, has appeared somewhat tepid towards the re-election bid. Indeed, ET notes in the piece:

Pero una de las mayores incógnitas de este proceso legislativo la constituye el camino que tomará el Partido Conservador en torno a la segunda reelección del presidente Uribe.

Basic translation:

One of the major unknowns in this process is the road that will be taken by the Conservative Party in regards to a second re-election of President Uribe.

The PC, and the other parties in the coalition, have to weigh the short-term benefit of remaining in a pro-Uribe coalition after 2010 to the possibility of offering their own candidates for the highest office in the land themselves. Do they forgo their own party-building to continue to support Uribe? What about all the other high ambition politicians that support the coalition now, but were doing so to bid their time until Uribe’s time ran out?

There, too, is the question of whether a third term would be healthy for Colombian democracy, an issue that will not be lost on many politicians as well as many in the public. As such, this is no minor issue.

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Associated thumbnail courtesy of the United Nations.