Santiago, Chile, May 17, 2004 / 22:00 pm
The Chilean Health Minister, Pedro Garcia, has given mayors in Chile an ultimatum, demanding they obey an order to distribute the morning after pill. However Marta Ehlers, mayor of Lo Barnechea, is refusing to distribute the pill because of its abortifacient nature.
Although the Supreme Court of Chile prohibited the sale of the pill in 2001, Garcia has issued an order obliging mayors to make 35,000 dosages of the pill available in local clinics.
Health officials now say the pill should only be made available to women who have been raped, but the initial norm, sent out to mayors last April 15, required that it be distributed for practically any reason.
Since she first denounced the plan, Ehlers has become the target of attacks by those who support the policy. Garcia called Ehlers a “rebel” mayor and threatened to cut off funding for the municipalities of those mayors who refused to make the pill available.
Ehlers told CNA that as mayor she believes she must defend life from the moment of conception and that she will not allow lies to obscure the truth about abortions.