Colombia’s Constitutional Court on Wednesday ordered the country’s inspector general to rectify claims opposing abortion and the use of the morning-after pill.
The court gave Inspector General Alejandro Ordoñez 48 hours to publicly rectify a statement in which he called sexual education campaigns “Mass campaigns to promote abortion as a right.”
Additionally, the court ordered Ordoñez, a strict defender of traditional catholic family values, to modify his Office’s official stance that the use of the morning-after pill constitutes abortion, which in Colombia is only allowed in cases that involve rape, danger to the mother’s life or that the child will be born with severe defects.
Women’s rights activists celebrated the decision, claiming that “with sexual education, access to birth control and a guaranteed voluntary interruption of pregnancy, women and girls will stop risking their health and their integrity for unwanted pregnancies.”
Ordoñez refused to comment on the court’s decision, claiming “I haven’t been notified” of the publicized ruling.
