How Abortion Decriminalization in Colombia Will Impact Underaged Girls

As soon as 15-year-old Andrea* discovered that she was pregnant in 2019, she knew she wanted an abortion. The problem was obtaining one. In Colombia, abortion is permitted only in cases of rape or incest; if the fetus shows fatal malformations; or if the mother’s health is in danger. In all other cases, the procedure remains a criminal offense, often forcing desperate women to forgo professional medical attention and seek out unsafe abortions instead.

Andrea, who was then oblivious to abortion regulations, opted for an at-home abortion performed in secret, with medication procured clandestinely. But within a matter of hours, Andrea was in agonizing pain and being rushed to urgent care, where medical staff tried to reverse the ongoing abortion. When that failed, they called the police.

“Instead of receiving assistance, women and girls are criminalized by the penal system,” said Aura Cuasapud, a lawyer with Catholics for the Right to Decide, an organization under the umbrella of abortion rights group Causa Justa. “That should put into question a lot of things.”

Even as a minor, Andrea was facing a criminal investigation led by the attorney general’s office, said Carolina Treviño, a Causa Justa lawyer familiar with the case. At the suggestion of Causa Justa, an independent psychologist examined Andrea and diagnosed her with anxiety and depression that she attributed, in part, to the trial. The case ended in a deal that ordered Andrea to attend six months of psychosocial support.

Andrea’s case is not uncommon in Colombia. About 400 women on average are prosecuted every year in the Andean country, blocking eligible women from accessing safe, timely, and free abortions as mandated by a 2006 high court ruling, according to a report jointly released by Causa Justa with other Colombian women’s rights groups. Underage girls like Andrea are not exempt from such criminal prosecution and face sweeping sanctions, from restricted movement to mandatory community service, if convicted.

The fight for better abortion access is a struggle playing out across Latin America, a predominantly Catholic region that is gradually lifting some of its strictest abortion restrictions. In Colombia, women’s rights groups say decriminalizing abortion would be an important advance in protecting vulnerable women and girls (97 percent of whom come from rural areas where access to a safe procedure is already impeded by geography) from backstreet abortions and criminal prosecution.

The report also found that underage girls are disproportionately convicted when compared to adult women: Although minors made up only 12.5 percent of women investigated for abortions between 2006 and 2019, official figures show that they represent 25 percent of all convictions.

“It’s easier to prosecute a girl because of how much more vulnerable she is than to prosecute an adult woman,” said Cuasapud. “Girls are often unaware of the exceptions, have less access to information and education, and seek out clandestine and unsafe facilities.”

Laura Castro, a spokesperson for Causa Justa, said that while sanctions against girls are a real concern, the police investigations alone are enough to cause distress and fear.

“The police often go to [their] houses and ask invasive questions, and from the very start, we see how women and girls’ rights are violated by their medical professionals, who breach confidentiality with the patient to report the abortion to police,” said Castro.

Medical staff and anyone else who performs abortions (safely or otherwise), even when they are consented to, face the same punishment as pregnant women and girls who seek the procedure — up to 54 months in prison. Treviño said that some medical personnel may decide to file a police report out of fear of prosecution.

Decriminalization would make it clearer in the minds of doctors that their first duty is to treat their patients, said Treviño.

While abortion remains criminalized, experts say that many girls are forced at the onset of their lives to undergo unwanted pregnancies. Poverty and education levels contribute to Colombia’s teenage pregnancy rate — one in five girls aged between 15 and 19 become pregnant every year — but abortion restrictions also play an important factor, experts say.

It may also block victims of sexual abuse from getting the abortion they are entitled to. More than 4,200 girls under the age of consent, which Colombia has set at 14, gave birth in 2020. Colombian law considers pregnancies in girls under the age of 14 to be the result of sexual assault. Yet, a new report from the international campaign “They’re Children, Not Mothers” found 37 cases of girls under the age of consent who were reported to the attorney general’s office for illegal abortions in 2017; at least three of these cases targeted girls between the ages of 11 and 12. Although the study did not reveal whether these police reports led to prosecutions, children under the age of 14 cannot be found legally responsible for any crimes committed.

The constitutional court is currently reviewing a lawsuit filed by Causa Justa in 2020challenging the constitutionality of a provision in the penal code that criminalizes women and girls, like Andrea, who abort. After a 4-4 tie in late January of this year, the decision will now be left in the hands of a new associate judge; although, it’s still unclear when deliberation will resume.

This recent court challenge comes after 15 bills (both in favor of and against making abortion more accessible) floundered between 2006 and 2020. While the courts remain the battleground of choice for women’s rights activists, the deadlock in the constitutional court and Congress shows how divisive the question of abortion remains in the predominantly Catholic country. In a 2019 poll, only 61 percent of people surveyed said women who decide to abort should not be jailed.

At a November 2021 rally in Bogotá, opposing views on abortion rights divided a crowd of protesters between feminists — clad in the emblematic green scarves that have come to represent the pro-abortion movement throughout Latin America — and religious anti-abortion advocates, who performed an ultrasound on the steps of the constitutional court and hoisted up posters of fetuses.

Esteban Ramirez, spokesperson for United for Life, an association of anti-abortion groups, told Women Under Siege that women who have aborted should not face prison time or sanctions, but that abortion should remain a crime, regardless of how the constitutional court rules.

“Abortion has many victims — in the first place, an innocent, unborn life, but also a mother and a family,” said Ramirez. “The solution is not to criminalize a woman who was brought to this fatal decision because of state abandonment.”

Following the 4-4 ruling, the constitutional court, with the addition of an associate judge, must resume debate and make a definitive decision. If abortion is decriminalized, the procedure would continue to be banned (except under the three circumstances) but women and girls would no longer face jail time or sanctions. The same applies for medical personnel or any person who performs a consented abortion. While full legalization is still far off, women’s rights advocates believe that decriminalization represents an important step toward safer and more accessible abortions.

Said Castro, “Decriminalization means less barriers for women, especially among those most vulnerable like underage girls, and greater equality among women.”



*Name has been changed to protect the person's privacy.