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LivinginPeru.com
Isabel Guerra

Peru's Constitutional Court (TC) invalidated the free distribution of Emergency Oral Contraception (EOC) pills in the country, and asked the Health Ministry (Minsa) not to develop public health policies based on it, because the TC considers that “the absence of abortifacient effects has not been fully proved.”

According to an article printed today in El Comercio, the Constitutional Court accepted the claim filed against Health Ministry by NGO “Action Against Corruption,” which requests Minsa to refrain from starting free-distribution programs, and also to include in the pill's brochures the warning that the product could prevent a fertilized egg from being implanted.

TC alleges it has examined several arguments: those presented by Pan American Health Organization, claiming that “international scientific community agrees that the pill is not abortive,” and Latin American Alliance for the Family, which declares that “scientifically, it is not possible to say that this pill does not have an abortifacient effect.”

The TC states that it had be cautious, alleging that, despite its function is not to determine when life actually begins, it must handle the fact that lack of consensus generate doubts and that there is no certainty on the real effects of this pill.

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