According to figures released by the President Michelle Bachelet, around 500 deaths are recorded each year from fetal malformation. (Reuters)
The president of Chile has sent legislation to Congress proposing to loosen the socially conservative South American nation's total ban on abortions.
The bill introduced by President Michelle Bachelet would decriminalise abortions in three types of cases: malformation of a fetus, a pregnancy posing a threat to the life of a woman carrying a fetus, and conception caused by rape.
Chile is one of the few countries in the world that does not allow abortion for any reason and Bachelet's proposal is likely to face an arduous debate in Congress, where several opposition legislators and even some members of the president's New Majority bloc have already announced they will fight the change.
Bachelet announced last May that she would push such legislation. She noted that therapeutic abortions were allowed during the 1973-90 dictatorship of Gen Augusto Pinochet.
According to figures released by the President, about 16,500 women are hospitalised each year in Chile due to life-threatening complications of pregnancy or because of malformations of a fetus. She said about 500 deaths are recorded each year from fetal malformation.