A woman from Honduras has filed a complaint with the UN Human Rights Committee saying the country’s laws prevented her from getting an abortion after she was raped.
The 34-year-old woman, named Fausia, is being represented by the the Center for Reproductive Rights and the Centro de Derechos de Mujeres (CDM), which are arguing that Fausia’s fundamental rights were violated because she was unable to get an abortion, which caused her to experience so-called “forced motherhood” as well as “serious physical and mental suffering.”
The pro-abortion organizations are fighting Honduras’ law which protects preborn children from abortion and also allegedly prevented Fausia from receiving the morning-after pill, which they claim would have prevented her pregnancy.
“Honduras’s regressive policies on sexual and reproductive health constitute clear violations of the fundamental rights of women and girls, including their rights to life, health, privacy, autonomy, and bodily integrity, as well as to live a life free from discrimination, torture, violence, and persecution,” the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) said in a press release.
This isn’t the first time the UN has gotten involved in the country’s pro-life policies. In 2017, Honduran lawmakers resisted pressure from the UN and the European Union to revise a 1982 law that prohibits abortion. In 2021, UN officials again spoke out against a constitutional reform that prohibits abortion for any reason. Pro-life lawmakers ratified the reforms despite the outside naysayers.
“Every human being has the right to life from the moment of conception,” Congressman Mario Pérez said at the time.
READ: First female president of Honduras vows to legalize abortion
Carmen Cecilia Martínez, Associate Director of Legal Strategies at CRR in Latin America and the Caribbean, claimed that “Fausia’s case stands as a prime example of the numerous human rights violations that arise from the criminalization of an essential health service. The criminalization of abortion affects all people who may need an abortion, particularly those in vulnerable situations, such as survivors of sexual violence.”
Though rape is always tragic, a violent action like abortion never undoes that tragedy, but instead, compounds it. Fausia needed compassion and help to heal from the violent trauma of the rape she experienced so unjustly — not the second violence of an abortion, which also comes with its own trauma of physical and mental anguish. Live Action News has shared the stories of many women who have undergone abortion after rape and have experienced nothing but pain and regret.
As seen in this situation, the argument is often made that abortion is a “fundamental right,” but there is never a legitimate right to take an innocent life. In fact, as the CRR press release notes, the first fundamental right to life for women and girls is the right to life. Abortion is the intentional homicide of an innocent preborn child.
There is no right to kill that child, even if that child is conceived in a violent and tragic circumstance like rape.
