CIVICUS speaks with Regina Fonseca, coordinator of the Strengthening the Right to Decide programme of the Women’s Rights Centre (CDM), about the case the organisation took to the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee in search of changes to the ban on abortion in Honduras.
CDM is a feminist, autonomous, critical and proactive Honduran civil society organisation that campaigns for women’s human rights.
Why did you go to the UN Human Rights Committee?
Honduras is a hostile country for women and their reproductive freedoms, which is reflected in cases such as that of Fausia, an Indigenous woman and human rights defender of the Nahua people who survived sexual violence and faced forced maternity as a result of the total ban on abortion. We turned to international organisations because we exhausted all possibilities to seek reproductive justice at the domestic level.
Honduras is unique in that its constitution explicitly bans abortion, which it also criminalises with no exceptions in the Penal Code in force since 2020. Abortion was already criminalised under the previous penal code, so when legislative discussion of a new penal code began we hoped this would change, and we worked hard for it. However, the prohibition and criminalisation of abortion were carried over intact from the old code into the new one.
In response, we filed an appeal of unconstitutionality, and in 2021, when the ban was also included in the constitution, we complained that it violated the state’s human rights commitments. The prohibition of abortion in all circumstances violates women’s right to life and health, and the principles of human dignity, equality, non-discrimination and the progressive realisation of human rights.
The Supreme Court admitted and heard our case, but ruled against us. We filed an appeal, our last remaining recourse, but the Supreme Court upheld its ruling.
That’s why, alongside the Centre for Reproductive Rights, we took Fausia’s case to the UN Human Rights Committee, demanding justice for her and guarantees of non-repetition so no Honduran woman has to go through the same situation ever again. We hope the Human Rights Committee will recommend that the Honduran state regulate abortion outside the criminal justice system, recognising it as the health service that it is, and implement protocols for access to abortion and emergency contraception within the framework of public health services.
Why do you view total abortion bans as a violation of human rights?
Total abortion bans result in forced pregnancies and childbearing, violating reproductive autonomy, as experienced by Fausia and thousands other women. Every year, more than a thousand Honduran girls under the age of 14 become mothers as a result of rape. There are likely many more, but families often don’t report this.
Total abortion bans result in the deaths of women who have health complications that prevent them carrying a pregnancy to term. Clandestine and unsafe abortions also cause deaths and serious health problems. Obviously, women who can afford a clandestine abortion in relatively safe conditions do so, but this is not available to most. Younger, rural, Indigenous and disabled women and transgender men are among the most vulnerable, lacking the resources to seek safe solutions provided by trained medical professionals.
We lack reliable data on the mental health impacts of unwanted pregnancy, but I met a woman who later committed suicide because of it. I also know the case of a woman with a pregnancy that had very much been wanted, but whose foetus was developing without a brain. Even so, she wasn’t allowed to terminate the pregnancy and had to endure a lot of suffering from the time she learned of the prognosis until she gave birth to a baby who died within minutes. The emotional distress of unwanted pregnancy and the prospect of forced motherhood are forms of torture, particularly in cases of rape or congenital malformation incompatible with life.
For all these reasons, we believe that total abortion bans violate human rights. Faced with a lack of options in the face of an unwanted pregnancy, women put their physical and mental health and their lives at risk. This is unjust and discriminatory. There is no law in Honduras that obliges a man to do anything that puts his health or life at risk. These laws reinforce gender hierarchies and inequalities.
How are Honduran feminists working to promote women’s rights?
We try to produce alternative narratives to counter dominant narratives, which are strongly anti-rights. We have little capacity to advocate with political representatives, because Honduran political elites are afraid of losing votes if they adopt pro-women’s rights positions. They operate in tune with a society that is deeply conservative, impoverished, poorly educated and easily manipulated by the media and Catholic and evangelical churches.
Honduran anti-rights groups use the same tactics and arguments as their peers in the region. They are highly coordinated transnationally and have considerable resources, partly because they are very close to political power or occupy positions of power themselves.
It’s difficult to build alternative narratives when the dominant narrative runs along the lines of the ‘don’t mess with my children’ campaign, because the slogan stems from a legitimate parental concern not to expose children to any harm. Confronting these narratives needs deeper reflection, for which there is usually not time or space in campaigning or media.
The changes we have achieved in creating public awareness are limited. Traditional media owners often veto the issue. On social media, people – who, on average, have a low level of formal education – easily fall prey to anti-rights discourse that lumps together all demands for gender equality, freedom and autonomy as part of evil ‘gender ideology’.
In the face of this, we make efforts to broaden dialogue among women, carry out feminist training sessions, organise to take our activism to the streets and try to advocate for progressive change. But we are starting from very low level: suffice it to say that in Honduras, sex education is still not allowed on the public education curriculum.
Civic space in Honduras is rated ‘repressed’ by CIVICUS Monitor.
Get in touch with CDM through its website or Facebook page, and follow @CDMHonduras on Twitter and Instagram.
