Abortion in Puerto Rico

Abortion effectively became legal in Puerto Rico in 1937 after the territory's legislature repealed existing laws around reproductive care and treatment.  These reforms included allowing interstate transportation of information about contraceptives and birth control methods, legalized contraceptive sterilization, and introduced a therapeutic exemption for abortions to protect the life or health of the woman who was pregnant.[10]

In 1964, there was a legislative effort to try to repeal the 1937 reforms by amending Puerto Rico's penal code, though it was only partially effective in totally criminalizing abortion; one consequence of these efforts though was it resulted in a large drop in the number of abortions performed in Puerto Rico.[10] There was no move by the legislature of Puerto Rico to make abortion legal prior to the 1973 Roe v. Wade US Supreme Court ruling.[6][7]

In 2012, the Puerto Rico Penal Code was revised in Section II, Articles 99 to 101 that relate to abortion.  Changes were made that made having an abortion a felony.  This legislation was largely pushed through by the New Progressive Party who were trying to win votes among conservative voters on the island, even if the legislation could not withstand judicial review.[11]

As of 2016, the law required that women seeking an abortion must have a pelvic exam performed by the doctor providing the abortion at the clinic.  The law also required women have their blood testing for anemia and to determine their RH factor.  The law also required doctors to offer any other exams or tests that may be needed prior to performing the abortion so a woman is fully informed, including a sonogram to determine how far along the pregnancy is.[12] Prior to 2019, minors did not require consent before getting an abortion so long as the doctor had provided the minor woman with adequate information to allow her to make an informed decision.[12]

An evangelical minister Senator named Nayda Venegas put forth a proposed law on March 4, 2019 that would require women under the age of 21 to get parental consent before being allowed to have an abortion. This effort failed.[13] On May 7, 2018, Puerto Rico legislature proposed a series of abortion restrictions that were signed into law by the territory's governor on March 7, 2019.[13] The restrictions included girls under the age of 18 being required to get parental consent before being allowed to get an abortion.  An exception was allowed saying, “the minor can go to court if she insists on having an abortion to present their claims to getting an abortion."[13][5] PS950 was vetoed on the same day, March 7, 2019 by Governor Ricardo Rosselló  who said the legislation imposed “onerous restrictions”  on a woman's ability to access abortion services.  The House then overrrode the veto of PS950.[7] Pre-natal care for women under the age of 18 does not require similar parental consent.[5]

The US Supreme Court's decision in 1973's Roe v. Wade ruling meant the state could no longer regulate abortion in the first trimester.[14] Abortion also became legal in Puerto Rico as a consequence of this decision.[6] The Puerto Rican Supreme Court oversaw the case of the People of Puerto Rico v. Pablo Duarte Mendoza in 1980.  Their ruling was effectively a territory specific answer to a question already answered by the US Supreme Court in the earlier Roe v. Wade.[11] The 1980 cases involved Dr. Pablo Duarte Mendoza being charged in 1973 for allegedly performing an illegal abortion on a 16-year-old girl in violation of Puerto Rico's 1937 abortion laws.  Duarte was given a sentence of two to four years around the time that the 1937 law was being repealed and replaced with a law that provided women with greater access to abortion services. Duarte appealed the sentence to the Puerto Rico Supreme Court, which overturned the sentence given by the Puerto Rico Superior Court, citing the needs of the doctor to be able to consider a woman's health issues in the first trimester, with the women's health being a primary factor in whether or not an abortion should occur.  The Supreme Court said that the issues of the health of the pregnant woman trumped any concern about her age.[11]

During the 1930s when abortion was illegal, Puerto Rican midwives and nurses who had training related to prenatal care and delivering babies would also sometimes perform abortions; Puerto Rican women were willing to pay a premium to use these medical practitioners to have safer abortions.[10] The passage of the 1937 revisions in law did not result in an immediate increase in the number of abortion providers as the new laws were not widely shared.[10]

In the early 1990s, there were over a dozen abortion clinics in Puerto Rico.[5] In 1993, there were thirteen private clinics on the island offering abortion services.[15][6] Women in the 1990s in the Caribbean had few options for where they could get legal abortions, with Puerto Rico and Cuba being two of the places offering women the easiest legal access.[16] This continued into the 2000s and 2010s.[5] Women coming to Puerto Rico in 2016 for abortions included women from the Dominican Republic.[5] In 2016, there were seven abortion clinics in the territory.[12] The type of informed consent materials and documentation that minors were given in 2016 varied from clinic to clinic.  This was because the law did not, by law, require informed consent for minors.[12] In 2016, the price of an abortion at a family planning clinic generally cost around $225 to $325 for a first trimester abortion.[12] In 2019, there were only six abortion clinics left on the island.[5]

Clergy Consultation Service was an organization the promoted abortion rights on the island during the 1950s and 1960s. They were an outside organization.[10]

Taller Salud is one of the organizations supporting abortion rights.[7] Amnesty International Puerto Rico also works on abortion rights in Puerto Rico.[5]

Taller Salud's Michel Collado said in 2019, “Over the last few years, we’ve been struggling with a government that has eliminated access to sex education and gender perspective in public schools; they also cut funding to the NGOs [non-government organizations] that work with those issues."[7]

In 2019, International Women's Day in Puerto Rico revolved around women taking to the streets en masse to support abortion. Their efforts this day on abortion rights were part of broader 8M efforts to combat gender violence.[13] 107 women in Puerto Rico were killed between 2007 and 2011 as a result of partner violence.  Of these 30 were killed in 2011 alone. In 2018, 23 women were murdered by intimate partners with 53 total women killed as a result of domestic violence that year.[13]

Senator Venegas Brown said during the debate around PS950, “I wish this was a bill to ban abortion."  Brown said the only reason Senators were not able to do so was because of Roe v. Wade .[5]

An anti-abortion rally was held in 1974 in San Juan following revisions in Puerto Rican law earlier that year.[11]