TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Members of the Honduran Congress voted on Thursday to amend the constitution, making it much more difficult to reverse existing hard-line prohibitions on abortion and same-sex marriage as legislators double their priorities socially conservative.
Lawmakers voted to demand a three-fourths supermajority to amend a constitutional article that gives the fetus the same legal status as a person, and another that states that civil marriage in the Central American nation can only be between a man and a woman.
With 88 legislators in favor, 28 against and seven abstentions, the proposal will still need a second vote in the unicameral legislature next year before it is promulgated.
Currently, all constitutional changes require a two-thirds majority vote of the 128-member body.
Mario Perez, a legislator for President Juan Orlando Hernandez’s governing party, explained during a debate in the virtual plenary that the change will create a “constitutional block” in any possible smoothing of existing articles.
The country’s penal code establishes prison terms of three to six years for women who abort a fetus, as well as anyone else involved.
Advocates for abortion rights have accused supporters of the proposal of seeking to cement the current prohibitions.
“This legislation permanently condemns pregnant women or girls who have been raped or are at risk of dying for health reasons,” said Merary Mendoza, a researcher at the Honduran women’s studies center CEMH.
Kevihn Ramos, head of a gay rights advocacy group in Honduras, criticized lawmakers who voted to make it difficult to change the two constitutional articles.
“This reform is the product of a state-imposed religion on Honduras,” he said.
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