‘Las tres causales’ son un derecho humano

“Las tres causales,” or “the three causes,” is the never-ending debate that has hundreds of thousands of Dominican women dressed in green protesting for their right to abortion.

The nearly 20-year-old movement demands the legal right to terminate a pregnancy on only three grounds: when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, if the woman’s life is at risk, or when the fetus becomes incompatible with life.

This Valentine’s day, while others celebrated love and companionship, Dominican women were buried in disappointment. After so much protest, the Senate of the Dominican Republic approved a second reading of the reformed draft of the Penal Code that recognizes and applies people’s fundamental rights without these three causes. The same day, sixteen-year-old Esmeralda Richiez bled out in her bathroom after her math teacher, who is accused of having inappropriate relations with her, gave her abortion pills.

I spoke to Manuel Oviedo Estrada, president of the Dominican Party for Change (DXC) and Lia Hernandez, a representative for CIPAF regarding the almost 20-year movement.