Dominican Republic to Vote on Penal Code that'll Severely Affect LGBTQIA2S+ Community and Women

Photo by ERIKA SANTELICES/afp/AFP via Getty Images

After several protests and an unkept presidential promise, the fight for abortion and LGBTQIA2S+ rights continues in the Dominican Republic.

In March 2021, the Caribbean island saw hundreds of women and advocates for reproductive rights march outside of President Luis Abinader's executive mansion in Santo Domingo after Dominican lawmakers failed to decriminalize abortion and expand safe access.

On July 20, the Dominican Congress will vote on a penal code that stands to maintain the total criminalization of abortion—even in cases of rape, incest or when a woman's life is in danger—and protects acts of discrimination against LGBTQIA2+ folk when carried out for "freedom of conscience and worship."

Under this code, discrimination based on sexual orientation and other biases will not carry consequences.

Photo credit should read ERIKA SANTELICES/AFP via Getty Images

"We will keep fighting to defend our personal rights and freedoms, so no one is ever forced to die because of a pregnancy complication," said Dominican activist and representative of the Coalición por la Vida y los Derechos de las Mujeres, Sergia Galván. "We need everyone's support in demanding a new Penal Code in the Dominican Republic that protects all of us, and we cannot waver. We have to march through the streets here and in all parts of the world with our green bandanas, united in solidarity, to protect the right to abortion and for our collective liberation."

The Dominican Republic is among five nations in Latin America and the Caribbean that prohibit abortions under all circumstances, including El Salvador, Haiti, Jamaica, Nicaragua and Honduras, Amnesty International reports.

The country's total abortion ban has been in place since 1884 and imposes prison sentences of up to two years for women and girls who have abortions and up to 20 years for doctors who provide them, according to Human Rights Watch.

On the island, women and girls often face clandestine abortions when wanting to terminate unplanned or unwanted pregnancies, or are forced to carry pregnancies to term. Many women lack the financial means to travel to countries where abortion is legal and often perish at the hands of clandestine abortions in rural areas.

Photo by ERIKA SANTELICES/afp/AFP via Getty Images

"Some suffer serious health complications, and even death, from unsafe abortion," Human Rights Watch reported in 2018. "An estimated 25,000 women and girls are treated for complications from miscarriage or abortion in the public health system in the Dominican Republic each year."

In 2012, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights saw the case of Rosaura Almonte, a 16-year-old girl known as "Esperancita" who died of leukemia after she was denied treatment to save her life due to her pregnancy.

President Abinader promised during his campaign to partially decriminalize abortions when a woman's life was in danger, pregnancy was not viable or in cases of rape or incest, a promise he did not keep once in office.

Getty Images / ERIKA SANTELICES

In an interview with El País in December 2020, he spoke about his views and official position.

"Look, I am against open abortion as is the majority of the population, not just in the Dominican Republic, but most of the world, but I do believe there should be reasons that permit the interruption of a pregnancy," he said. "Incest or violation, the risk to the mother's life or that the fetus has a malformation that is incompatible with life."

More to come on the final vote.