The President of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, said on Monday that his government is working on a bill to approve the holding of a referendum so that it is the Dominicans who decide on the decriminalization of abortion, a matter which “divides the population” of country.
“I am in favor, but it is a decision that involves many issues, not only health, but also religious,” said the Dominican president in an interview Monday in Madrid with the president of the EFE Agency, Gabriela Cañas.
Abinader is on an official visit to Spain before traveling to Andorra, where next Wednesday the Ibero-American Summit will be held in part due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Prior to this trip he took part in a Tribune organized by EFE and the Casa de América, where he reiterated his support for the decriminalization of abortion in his country, a controversial issue for years in the Dominican Republic, and which was one of his bulwarks during the election campaign that brought him to the presidency.
The Dominican Republic is one of six countries in America that maintain a total ban on abortion, along with El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti and Suriname.
However, organizations have reported that thousands of abortions are performed clandestinely each year in the Caribbean country, putting women’s lives at risk.
Several sectors are calling on the National Congress to include abortion in the Penal Code when a woman’s life or health is in danger, when the fetus is incompatible with extrauterine life and when the pregnancy is the product of a rape.
However, other sectors suggest excluding the issue of the Penal Code and including it in a special law, while a third group is of the opinion that it should be submitted to a referendum.
For now, the decision is in the hands of the Dominican Congress and the possibility of holding this referendum.
Abinader acknowledged the country’s high maternal mortality rate, but alleged that one of the causes has to do with the “Haitian issue” and “the sense of humanity with which we have treated it.”
He recalled in this regard that 29% of maternity beds in the Dominican Republic are occupied by Haitian women, due to the absence of hospitals in Haiti.
“48% of maternal mortality in the Dominican Republic corresponds to Haitians, also because they have not had access to prior medical consultations,” he stressed.
The Dominican president explained that this is an issue that has been discussed with his Haitian counterpart, Jovenel Moïse, and it was decided to build hospitals on the border, on the Haitian side “to be able to attend to them, and to be able to unload ours.” .