TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras—Members of the Honduran Congress voted on Thursday to modify the constitution making it much harder to reverse existing hard-line restrictions on abortion and same-sex marital relationship, as legislators double down on socially conservative concerns.
Lawmakers voted to need a three-quarters super-majority to alter a constitutional short article that offers a fetus the exact same legal status of an individual, and another that states that civil marital relationship in the Central American country can just be in between a male and a female.
With 88 lawmakers in favor, 28 opposed and 7 abstentions, the proposition will still require a 2nd vote in the unicameral legislature next year prior to it is enacted.
Currently, all constitutional modifications need a two-thirds bulk vote of the 128-member body.
Mario Perez, a legislator with the ruling celebration of President Juan Orlando Hernandez, described throughout a virtual flooring argument that the modification will produce a “constitutional lock” on any prospective softening of the existing posts.
The nation’s criminal code sets out 3 to six-year jail terms for ladies who terminate a fetus along with anybody else included.
Abortion-rights advocates implicated backers of the proposition of looking for to seal the present restrictions.
“This legislation permanently condemns pregnant women or pregnant girls who have been raped or risk dying due to health reasons,” stated Merary Mendoza, a scientist with the Honduran ladies’s research studies center CEMH.
Kevihn Ramos, the head of a gay rights advocacy group in Honduras, blasted the legislators who voted to make it more difficult to alter the 2 constitutional posts.
“This reform is the product of a state-imposed religion on Honduras,” he stated.
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