Peru, Peruvian authorities issued the 2014 National Therapeutic Abortion Guidelines, which attempted to address this discrepancy, although in practice, the guidelines have been difficult to implement. After two groundbreaking international decisions, KL v. Unfortunately, informal rules long have been used to deny access to legal and safe abortion. Health workers and other bureaucrats denied these girls access to therapeutic abortion on different grounds: Some withheld access to information or asked for the authorization of the parents (even when the mother’s partner was the rapist), others asked the girls and mothers to reflect on the rights of the unborn, and others denied the medical procedure, arguing that they did not qualify.Ībortion, however, has been legal in Peru for 100 years only in cases where the procedure is necessary to preserve the life or health of the pregnant woman. Initially, health workers denied the girls access to abortion, and ultimately one died during labor. Between August and mid-October 2023, media reports documented a string of tragedies: six Peruvian girls between the ages of 10 and 13 were raped by relatives, resulting in unwanted pregnancies.
