Pro-life triumph in Dominican Republic: Lawmakers overwhelmingly reject abortion

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Apr 23, 2009 / 03:01 pm MT (CNA).-

An overwhelming majority of Dominican lawmakers voted to protect the country from abortion by modifying the constitution to guarantee the right to life from conception to natural death, in a vote of 167-32.

The vote was held on Tuesday after President Leonel Fernandez requested the issue be taken up.

“The right to life is inviolable from conception to death. The death penalty shall not be established, sentenced or applied in any case,” the measure read, thus outlawing abortion in the Dominican Republic.”

“Christians celebrated this transcendent decision for the value of life because abortion is a death penalty,” Father Milton Ruiz of the Department of Family Ministry told the AP.