Argentinian court upholds criminal conviction of doctor who refused abortion for rape victim

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – An Argentinian appellate court has upheld the 2019 criminal conviction of a doctor who refused to give a rape victim a late-term abortion. In a divided ruling on March 23, two judges found Dr. Rodríguez Lastra had “failed to comply with the duties of a public official” when he refused to perform the abortion in 2017. Lastra told the court his refusal was in order to protect the lives of both mother and child.

Lastra, who is a pro-life obstetrician, was head of the Gynaecology department at the Fernández Oro hospital in Rio Negro when the 19-year-old woman was referred to him. Five months’ pregnant because of rape, the patient stated she had taken the first of two abortion drugs and asked for the abortion to be completed. However, Lastra determined that under the circumstance abortion posed too much of a risk to the health of both the patient and the baby. The baby was eventually born and was given for adoption.

At the subsequent trial in 2019, Lastra was given a 14-month suspended prison sentence and a 28-month disqualification from holding public office. The trial judge said the doctor was legally bound to perform the abortion as he had not been listed in the registry of conscientious objectors.

Although abortion is illegal in Argentina, there are exceptions for “extreme cases,” which include rape. In presenting their ruling at the appeals court this month, judges Miguel Angel Cardella and María Rita Custet Llambí said: “A woman who is pregnant as a result of rape has the right to access the medical practice of legal abortion in public health facilities and the defendant obstructed that process.”

Lastra is taking his case to the country’s Supreme Court. His lawyer told BioEdge the appeal court decision “is a mere ideological expression that shows that they did not look at anything in the trial…if the Superior Court applies the law, as it should, we will be able to overturn this ruling.”

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