The president of Nicaragua, Enrique Bolanos, signed a new law last Friday that modifies the country’s Penal Code and outlaws abortion.

The reform of the Penal Code of Nicaragua, which previously had allowed for “therapeutic” abortion, was passed by the Nicaraguan Congress on October 26 by a vote of 52-0 with 9 abstentions.

President Bolanos stressed that the new law put the Penal Code “in complete conformity with the Constitution” of Nicaragua, which establishes that the right to life of the human person is inviolable and that the family is the basic unit of society.

The reform of the Penal Code was undertaken so that Nicaragua “would no longer continue carrying out criminal acts disguised as therapeutic abortions, through which innocent children are executed in their mothers’ wombs each day, in open violation of the Constitution that gives complete protection to the unborn child.”