Latin America's penchant for tampering with constitutions is unmatched. [...]
The Dominican Republic leads with 29 constitutions. [1]
This constitutional turmoil has given the Vatican the opening it was looking for and allowed it to get its "pro-life" (or "anti-choice") policies cemented more firmly than they would be in national legislation alone. What failed in Poland in 2006 succeeded in the Dominican Republic three years later.
On 18 September 2008 the President of the Dominican Republic introduced constitutional amendments to the Senate which
- guarantee the right to life and defines life from the moment of conception until death. (Art 30)
- define the family as the fundamental unit of society (Art 44)
- define marriage as the union of one man and one woman (Art 44 paragraph 1)
Because these constitutional amendments also let the President seek a third consecutive term in office, [2] he had every reason to try hard to get them through. He needed a two-thirds vote of both houses and his ruling party was only 19 votes short of this. [3]
The new Article 30, approved by a large majority of 167-32, states "the right to
life is inviolable from conception until death. The death penalty cannot be
established, pronounced, nor applied, in any case."
For weeks the Catholic bishops, led by Cardinal Archbishop Nicolas de Jesus Lopez of Santo Domingo, promoted the pro-life article through marches, television speeches, and protests outside of government buildings and in other places. "The Crusade for
Life" included collecting one million signatures to present to the National
Congress. [...]
Referring to abortion supporters and the constitutional reform process, the Archbishop of Santo Domingo said on his Sunday homily: "We know that there are butcher doctors, there are legislators who like to trade in life, there are people who have authority who make a living from that." [...] He said that abortion is a "crime," that it "exploits women" and that it is "terrorism."
The Cardinal Archbishop Nicolas de Jesus Lopez went further. He attacked members of Parliament, saying that Minou Tavares and Víctor Terrero, were ‘abortionists' (pro-abortion). [4]
On the day of the vote the Church stepped up the pressure on the lawmakers. At 7 AM two priests began a mass on the small boulevard in front of the Congress, and afterwards the group was bolstered by other friars, priests and deacons from several parishes and remained in the area to conduct a vigil. [5]
By contrast, when a crowd of women gathered to protest the amendments, a truck full of female police officers dressed in black riot protection gear pulled up to confront and control them. Not that this was necessary: the hundreds of women confined themselves to standing behind the barrier in front of the Senate in the afternoon sun, carrying signs such as "No Rosaries on our Ovaries" and chanting slogans against Article 30. [6] (The subtext on the poster says "The right to decide over our bodies is not a question of faith. It's a question of democracy.")
Lillian Fundera, a gynecologist, explained that the constitutional amendment will make some forms of contraception such as the IUD and the "morning-after" pill illegal and also condemn to certain death any woman who has an extopic pregnancy. [7] A report by the country's Society of Obtetricians and Gynecologists notes that, as it now stands, one in five maternal deaths there are due to botched abortions. The new constitutional amendments will increase this shocking maternal mortality rate, since therapeutic abortion will be penalized and unsafe abortions will proliferate still further. [8]
Notes
1. Marcela Sanchez, "A Penchant for Rewriting Democracy", Washington Post, 1 August 2008. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/31/AR2008073101274.html
Latin America's penchant for tampering with constitutions is unmatched. According to one count by University of Illinois political science professor Zachary Elkins, nearly half of the 801 new constitutions adopted in the world since 1789 have been written in Latin America. The Dominican Republic leads with 29 constitutions. [...] The writing of constitutions for political purposes is a "perversion" of the region's democratic tradition, according to Arturo Valenzuela, director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University [...] "A democratic constitution is not meant to give guarantees to a fleeting majority," said Valenzuela. It must withstand the whims of a leader or a majority at any given time and it has to "give assurance to everyone," particularly minorities.
2. Art. 104 of the Amendment repeats the phrase about allowing the president a “second term”, quietly dropping the qualifying “only one”. Cf. Art. 49 of the 2002 Constitution. http://pdba.georgetown.edu/Constitutions/DomRep/domrep02.html
3. “Dominican Constitutional amendment math=19”Dominican Today, 18 September 2008http://www.dominicantoday.com/dr/local/2008/9/19/29473/Dominican-Constitutional-amendment-math19
4. Angela Castellanos, "Dominican Republic: Catholic Republic? 'Right to Life' Enters Constitution", RH Reality Check, 1 May 2009. http://rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2009/04/30/dominican-republic-catholic-republic-right-life-enters-constitutio
5. "Catholics hold mass in front of Dominican Congress", Dominican Today, 21 April 2009.http://www.dominicantoday.com/dr/local/2009/4/21/31754/Catholics-hold-mass-in-front-of-Dominican-Congress
6. Elizabeth Eames Roebling, "Dominican Republic: Church Pushes Draconian Abortion Law", Inter Press Service, 23 April 2009. http://ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=46605
7. Ibid.
8. Castellanos, ibid.
In addition to the files below, the document can be found on the government site at www.presidencia.gob.do/app/banners/anteproyecto.doc as "Proyecto de Reforma de la Constitution" (Draft Reform of the Constitution").
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P.S.Highlights added.
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