Colombia

ABORTION POLICY
Grounds on which abortion is permitted
Yes*
No
No
No
No
No
No

To save the life of the woman

The abortion law does not expressly allow abortions to be performed to save the life of the woman, but the
general principles of criminal legislation allow abortions to be performed for this reason on grounds of necessity.

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH CONTEXT

Too high

Government intervention concerning fertility level:

To lower

Government policy on contraceptive use:

Direct support provided

Percentage of currently married women using

72

Total fertility rate (1995-2000):

2.8

Age-specific fertility rate (per 1,000 women aged 15-19, 1995-2000):

88

Government has expressed particular concern about:

Yes
Yes

Maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000 live births; 1990):

100
200

Female life expectancy at birth (1995-2000):

74

Source: The Population Policy Data Bank maintained by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the
United Nations Secretariat. For additional sources, see list of references.

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BACKGROUND
Abortion in Colombia is governed by provisions of the Penal Code of 1980. Under Articles 343-345
of the Code, no exceptions are stated to the general prohibition against abortion. Nonetheless, under
general principles of criminal law, an abortion can be performed to save the life of the pregnant woman.
Penalties for illegal abortions vary according to the circumstances in which the abortion is performed. A
woman who causes her own abortion or allows another person to cause it, as well as a person performing
an abortion with the consent of the woman, is subject to one to three years imprisonment. The punishment
is greater when the abortion is performed without the consent of the woman or when the woman is under 14
years of age. In these cases, the person performing the abortion is subject to three to ten years
imprisonment.
The language of the Penal Code of 1980 follows closely that of the Penal Code of 1936; the 1936 Code
had eliminated a previously expressed exception to the general prohibition of abortion when this
procedure was absolutely necessary to save the pregnant womans life. The major change introduced by
the 1980 Code was the removal of reduced penalties, including pardon, when the abortion was performed
to save the honour of the woman. In their place, the 1980 Code inserted provisions allowing for reduced
penalties to be imposed on a woman who caused her own abortion or allowed it be caused when she had
became pregnant as a result of violent or abusive sexual relations or through artificial insemination
performed on her without her consent. In these cases, she is subject to four months to one years
imprisonment.
Since the enactment of the 1980 Code, a number of attempts have been made to liberalize its
provisions on abortion, the most recent of them in 1997 as part of a larger law on sexual and reproductive
health proposed by a Colombian legislator. At the same time, those opposed to the performance of
abortions have introduced legislation to increase the penalties for illegal abortions. None of the proposed
legislation has achieved any success.
Two individuals have also attempted to change the abortion provisions of the Penal Code of Colombia
through the medium of the courts. Their actions were made possible by the 1991 Constitution, which
significantly expanded the opportunities for court challenges to existing legislation. One sought to have
the provisions of the Code prohibiting abortions declared unconstitutional for violating the constitutional
rights of couples to freely and responsibly determine the number of their children and the rights to
freedom of conscience and religion. The other sought to have provisions of the Code authorizing reduced
penalties for abortion in cases of rape, abusive sexual relations, or forced artificial insemination declared
unconstitutional as violating the constitutional right to life. The Constitutional Court denied relief in both
suits, and in the process forcefully rejected the idea of legalized abortion in Colombia.
Despite the current restrictions on abortion in Colombia, it is widely practised. Although official
abortion statistics are not available after 1974, it was estimated that, in 1975, 18 per cent of all pregnancies
ended in illegal abortion. Estimates in the late 1980s placed this figure at 25 per cent. In addition, 60 per
cent of all maternal deaths in the late 1980s in Colombia resulted from induced abortion. However,
prosecution for unlawful abortion is relatively rare.
Although the National Constitution of 1991 includes an article about the human right to family planning,
services provided by the Government were marginal until recent years. However, the Colombian Basic
Health Care Plan, compulsory until 2000, contains reproductive health services such as maternal/perinatal
care and family planning, including a wide range of contraceptive methods. To complement this plan, a new
sexual and reproductive health policy was approved in 1998 which aims, among other things, at reducing
maternal mortality as well as the number of deaths due to illegal abortions. To achieve this goal, the plan
intends to regulate emergency care services, improve the capacity to respond in case of complications and
ensure timely hospitalization and care. Sex education for adolescents was made compulsory in 1993.
Source: The Population Policy Data Bank maintained by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the
United Nations Secretariat. For additional sources, see list of references.

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However, no regulations or reproductive health care programmes specifically target adolescents. The
Colombian Association for Family Well-being (Asociacin Pro-Bienestar de la Familia
Colombiana/PROFAMILIA) is an important provider of family planning services, accounting for some 70
percent of family planning services nationwide as of 1995.

Source: The Population Policy Data Bank maintained by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of
the United Nations Secretariat. For additional sources, see list of references.

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