By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman
LUANDA, April 29, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Angola’s Penal Code reform, which is currently taking place in the country’s National Assembly, will propose to go beyond mere criminalization of abortion to punish the dissemination of the “means” to commit abortions as well as the dissemination of pro-abortion propaganda, reports the Angolan newspaper Jornal de Angola.
According to Luzia Sebastiao, a legal expert and member of a subcommittee charged with overhauling the penal code, abortion will continue to be a crime in Angola because there is no desire in the society to even debate the issue.
“For that reason, the bill continues to punish the interruption of pregnancy and adds two new types for the protection of that juridical good that is intra-uterine life,” Sebastiao told the Jornal de Angola. “They are: propaganda favorable to the interruption of pregnancy and the circulation of means for the interruption of pregnancy.”
All abortions are illegal in Angola, although the law does not punish abortions to save a mother’s life or protect her health, or in the case of rape or fetal inviolability.
However, international pro-abortion organizations such as “Pathfinder International” are active in the country, providing post-abortion care to women who have had illegal abortions. Such legislation will make it riskier for members of such organizations to secretly promote abortion or inform women on how to obtain one, an activity of which they are sometimes accused.