Abortion to remain a crime in Uruguay after Congress voteLawmakers failed Thursday to muster enough votes for a measure that would have ended Uruguay's 70-year-old ban on abortion, meaning the procedure will remain a crime in this socially conservative country. After a heated debate, legislators here failed to overturn a presidential veto of a bill passed in Congress earlier this month decriminalizing abortion. Lawmakers said they were unable to reach the three-fifths quotient quotient - The number obtained by dividing one number (the "numerator") by another (the "denominator"). If both numbers are rational then the result will also be rational. required in each chamber to override the veto, legislator LEGISLATOR. One who makes laws. 2. In order to make good laws, it is necessary to understand those which are in force; the legislator ought therefore, to be thoroughly imbued with a knowledge of the laws of his country, their advantages and defects; to Jaime Trobo said. The bill legalizing abortion -- passed by Congress earlier this month and hailed as a milestone -- would have allowed a woman to end a pregnancy within the first 12 weeks of gestation GESTATION, med. jur. The time during which a female, who has conceived, carries the embryo or foetus in her uterus. By the common consent of mankind, the term of gestation is considered to be ten lunar months, or forty weeks, equal to nine calendar months and a week. because of economic, family or age reasons. Abortion also would have been allowed for health, deformation deformation /de·for·ma·tion/ (de?for-ma´shun) 1. in dysmorphology, a type of structural defect characterized by the abnormal form or position of a body part, caused by a nondisruptive mechanical force. 2. or risk to the mother's life. But last week the bill was vetoed by President Tabare Vazquez, after the Roman Catholic church Roman Catholic Church, Christian church headed by the pope, the bishop of Rome (see papacy and Peter, Saint). Its commonest title in official use is Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. expressed "deep discomfort" about the bill. Vazquez, also a doctor by profession, had announced that he would veto the Law of Sexual and Reproductive Health Within the framework of WHO's definition of health[1] as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, reproductive health, or sexual health/hygiene because it included elements "with which I disagree, philosophically and biologically." Some ruling party lawmakers tried, but failed, to win Vazquez's support for the bill. They also failed to get his support in allowing Uruguayans to hold a referendum on the measure. A recent poll showed 57 percent of Uruguayans support access to abortion while 42 percent oppose it.
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