Honduran President Xiomara Castro signed an executive order Wednesday (8) lifting a more than a decade-old ban on the “morning-after pill.”
Castro thus fulfilled a long-awaited campaign promise by feminist groups.
Castro, the Central American country’s first female president, took office last year after running on a promise to ease the country’s “restrictive reproductive policies.”
Honduras, a strict Catholic country, banned the use and sale of the “Pastilla del Día Después” in 2009 because emergency contraception would lead to abortions.
Castro lifted the “morning-after pill” ban in November for rape victims.
Honduras criminalizes abortions, with those convicted facing up to six years in prison, even in cases of rape or incest.
Castro, who signed the decree on International Women’s Day, tweeted that the morning-after pill is “part of women’s reproductive rights and not abortifacient,” citing the World Health Organization.
Hundreds of women marched through Honduras’ largest cities, Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, on Wednesday with demands ranging from expanded reproductive rights to ending femicide, killing women based on gender.
The year before Castro took office, the Honduran Congress passed a constitutional reform to protect anti-abortion laws, requiring a three-fourths majority to amend.
Women’s and human rights groups have filed over a dozen appeals, which have been unsuccessful so far.
Local women’s rights groups estimate that between 50,000 and 80,000 illegal abortions are performed annually in the country.