President ends ban and makes emergency contraception extensively out there : NPR

Honduran President Xiomara Castro signed a brand new govt doc Wednesday night time that can 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 night time that can 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 capsule.

Castro introduced the reversal Wednesday night time, within the closing hours of Worldwide Girls’s Day. As she undid the coverage, Castro famous that the World Well being Group says the capsule shouldn’t be “abortive.”

The WHO’s coverage suggestion states, “All girls and ladies susceptible to an unintended being pregnant have a proper to entry emergency contraception and these strategies must be routinely included inside all nationwide household planning packages.”

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” drugs. It additionally prohibits abortion in all circumstances.

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 drugs referred to as 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 drugs would solely be made authorized in circumstances of rape.

On the time, Matheu mentioned the capsule did not qualify as a technique of contraception. However on Wednesday night time, he joined Castro at her desk to signal a brand new govt settlement along with her, opening the trail to emergency contraception.

Activists known as on Unhealthy 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 Unhealthy Bunny toured Honduras, GEPAE used eye-catching billboards to name on the artist behind the hit “Me Porto Bonito” — which references the Plan B capsule — 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 girls in Honduras has lengthy been at a disaster degree. In accordance with the Gender Equality Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean, Honduras had the best price of femicide of any nation within the area in 2021, the newest 12 months tabulated on its web site.