Chile.- A group of far-right Chilean deputies presented a bill so that women who want to have an abortion have the “opportunity to listen to the embryonic or fetal cardiac activity” before the termination of the pregnancy, which has generated controversy in the South American country.
The legislative initiative, dubbed “Listen to your heart“, was presented by parliamentarians from the Republican Party, founded by President José Antonio Kast, and the Libertarian National Party, among others.
The project seeks to modify the Health Code so that doctors, before performing an abortion, inform women about “embryonic or fetal cardiac activity” and offer them “the opportunity to listen to it.”
In Chile, abortion has been legal since 2017 only under three circumstances: risk to the mother, fetal inviability, and rape.
According to what the text establishes, the woman may refuse to listen to the heartbeat. However, if that occurs, “the doctor must refuse to perform the termination of the pregnancy” and record it in writing in her clinical file.
“There can be nothing less ideological than a baby’s heartbeat and a law that allows its heartbeat to be heard before its death,” the far-right parliamentarians argue in the bill.
Feminist organizations have described the project as “cruel” and defined it as “a tool of ideological deterrence that instrumentalizes the public health system to invalidate the autonomy of women and girls.”
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“In recent years, we have seen how sectors of the Chilean right have been adopting strategies and discourses promoted by international ultra-conservative movements,” the director of the Miles Corporation, Javiera Canales, indicated to the media.
The initiative, in fact, is not pioneering and was already adopted in 2022 in Hungary, during Viktor Orbán’s term, or in the Spanish region of Castile and León, where a coalition of the Vox and PP parties governs.
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The legislative project was also criticized by Antonia Orellana, former Minister of Women in Gabriel Boric’s progressive government, who asked in a letter published on her social media whether it is “really necessary to do that to someone who knows that the fruit of their pregnancy will not survive“.
Kast, a declared anti-abortionist and father of nine children, promised during his campaign not to wage the “cultural battle” and to focus on the main concerns of Chileans: crime and the economy.
The current Minister of Women, Judith Marín, known for her belligerent anti-abortion stance, has not yet commented on the controversial measure, but the Executive branch indicates that it is a parliamentary and non-governmental initiative.
