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Honduran President Xiomara Castro signed a brand new govt doc Wednesday evening that may enable open entry to emergency contraception.
Workplace of the Honduran Presidency
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Workplace of the Honduran Presidency
Honduran President Xiomara Castro signed a brand new govt doc Wednesday evening that may enable open entry to emergency contraception.
Workplace of the Honduran Presidency
Girls’s rights activists in Honduras are celebrating a significant victory, after President Xiomara Castro introduced that her authorities will carry its near-total ban on the emergency contraception tablet.
Castro introduced the reversal Wednesday evening, within the remaining hours of Worldwide Girls’s Day. As she undid the coverage, Castro famous that the World Well being Group says the tablet is just not “abortive.”
Hoy, #8M conmemoramos lucha histórica de la mujer, firmando con secretario @DrMatheu144 el Acuerdo Ejecutivo para libre uso y comercialización de la PAE. La Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) determinó que es parte de los derechos reproductivos de la mujer y no es abortiva. pic.twitter.com/ELQPTzhfd5
— Xiomara Castro de Zelaya (@XiomaraCastroZ) March 9, 2023
The WHO’s coverage suggestion states, “All ladies and ladies liable to an unintended being pregnant have a proper to entry emergency contraception and these strategies needs to be routinely included inside all nationwide household planning applications.”
Legalization will undo a 2009 ban
For years, Honduras was the one nation within the Americas to have an absolute ban on the sale or use of emergency contraception, often known as morning-after or “Plan B” capsules. It additionally prohibits abortion in all instances.
Honduras moved to ban emergency contraception in 2009, because the nation went by way of political and social upheaval. Its supreme court docket affirmed the ban in 2012.
After Castro grew to become the nation’s first feminine president, Honduras eased its stance on the medication often called PAE — for Píldora Anticonceptiva de Emergencia. However when Minister of Well being José Manuel Matheu introduced that coverage shift final fall, critics mentioned it did not go far sufficient, as the medication would solely be made authorized in instances of rape.
On the time, Matheu mentioned the tablet did not qualify as a way of contraception. However on Wednesday evening, he joined Castro at her desk to signal a brand new govt settlement together with her, opening the trail to emergency contraception.
Activists referred to as on Dangerous Bunny to assist
Teams in Honduras that pushed for open entry to emergency contraception embrace Technique Group for PAE, or GEPAE, which has been working with the U.S.-based Girls’s Equality Middle.
When Puerto Rican rapper and pop star Dangerous Bunny toured Honduras, GEPAE used eye-catching billboards to name on the artist behind the hit “Me Porto Bonito” — which references the Plan B tablet — to induce Honduran leaders to legalize emergency contraception.
The group Centro de Derechos de Mujeres, the Middle for Girls’s Rights, welcomed the information, saying by way of social media, “Our rights should not stay the bargaining chip of governments!”
Violence towards ladies in Honduras has lengthy been at a disaster stage. In line with the Gender Equality Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean, Honduras had the very best price of femicide of any nation within the area in 2021, the latest 12 months tabulated on its web site.
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