Abortion in Chile is legal only on three grounds: when the pregnant woman's life is at risk, when the fetus has a condition incompatible with life outside the womb, and in cases of rape, up to 12 weeks of gestation (14 weeks if the pregnant girl is under 14). Outside these grounds, abortion remains a crime. The law, known as Law 21,030 or the Ley IVE, took effect in September 2017 under President Michelle Bachelet after Congress passed it and the Constitutional Court upheld it. From 1989 until then, abortion had been banned in all circumstances, a prohibition imposed by the military government of Augusto Pinochet that reversed a 1931 provision allowing therapeutic abortion.
Implementation has been contested. Health workers may invoke conscientious objection, and by 2025 about 40 percent of obstetricians in the public system had declared themselves objectors in rape cases. Reform efforts have continued since the law was enacted. In 2021 the Chamber of Deputies rejected a bill to decriminalize abortion up to 14 weeks, and voters rejected two proposed constitutions in 2022 and 2023 that took opposite positions on the issue. In May 2025, the government of President Gabriel Boric introduced a bill to allow abortion on request up to 14 weeks through the health system. The bill remained in its first constitutional procedure in the Chamber of Deputies as of September 2026. The Catholic Church and evangelical groups remain influential opponents of liberalization.
History Before 1989 Chile introduced family planning in the 1960s, in part because physicians were concerned about maternal illness and death from clandestine abortion.United Nations Population Division. (2002). Abortion Policies: A Global Review. Retrieved 14 July 2006. The 1931 Health Code allowed therapeutic abortion, with the documented opinion of three physicians, when a woman's life was at risk. The requirement was reduced to the documented opinion of two physicians in the 1967 reform of the Health Code. During the presidency of Salvador Allende, obstetricians at Santiago's Barros Luco Hospital interpreted "therapeutic" broadly and reportedly performed about 3,000 abortions between March and September 1973.
The 1989 ban After the 1973 coup, the military government adopted pro-natalist policies. On September 15, 1989, months before the return to civilian rule, it repealed the therapeutic abortion provision, stating that advances in medicine had made it "no longer justifiable." The amended Health Code barred any action intended to cause an abortion, leaving Chile without a legal exception even when pregnancy endangered the woman's life.
Reform attempts, 1990–2013 Political interest in reform was minimal in the 1990s. The only bill to restore therapeutic abortion was never debated. Between 1990 and 2009, legislators submitted 15 abortion-related bills, about half of which aimed to increase penalties or create legal barriers to liberalization, and two of which proposed monuments to the "innocent victims of abortion." From the early 2000s to 2012, 11 bills would have allowed abortion in some circumstances. Three such bills introduced in 2011 were rejected by the Senate in April 2012. In 2013, under President Sebastián Piñera, Congress designated March 25 as the "day of those about to be born and of adoption."
Emergency contraception, by contrast, was legalized in the 2000s after a public dispute, and a 2008 rally in defense of the morning-after pill drew large crowds.
Criminal law The 1980 constitution states in article 19 that "the law protects the life of the one about to be born."
Abortion is regulated by articles 342 to 345 of the Penal Code, which fall under "Crimes and Offences against Family Order, Public Morality and Sexual Integrity." Under these provisions, a person who intentionally causes an illegal abortion faces presidio menor en su grado medio (541 days to three years) when the pregnant woman consents, presidio menor en su grado máximo (three years and one day to five years) when she does not consent, and presidio mayor en su grado mínimo (five years and one day to ten years) when violence is used against her. A woman who, outside the cases permitted by law, causes her own abortion or consents to another person causing it may face presidio menor en su grado máximo (three years and one day to five years), subject to the distinction in Article 344 for cases involving concealment of dishonor. Physicians who, abusing their profession, cause or cooperate in an illegal abortion are subject to the corresponding Article 342 penalty increased by one degree under Article 345. Thus, where Article 342(1) applies because violence was used against the pregnant woman, the physician faces presidio mayor en su grado medio (10 years and one day to 15 years), rather than a 20-year maximum. Health providers have reporting duties in certain circumstances involving suspected offenses, while Chilean law also protects medical confidentiality; the interaction between these duties has been legally contested. Under the rules governing abortions under the rape ground, the Code also expressly provides that confidentiality in the doctor–patient relationship must be respected.
Legalization
Passage of Law 21,030 Bachelet's coalition included both members who wanted abortion on request and members who would go no further than three grounds, and the bill she sent to Congress on January 31, 2015 reflected the narrower position. It covered risk to the woman's life, fatal fetal anomaly, and rape within 12 weeks of gestation (18 weeks for girls under 14). Congress debated the bill for about two and a half years, and public hearings were dominated by opponents. Legislators narrowed it during the process: they limited the life ground to a current risk to life, cut the maximum gestational age for girls under 14 from 18 to 14 weeks, and required hospital directors to notify prosecutors when a woman requested an abortion after rape. Congress approved the bill on August 2, 2017, and on August 21 the Constitutional Court rejected the opposition's challenge by a 6–4 vote. The court also held that private institutions, not only individual professionals, could claim conscientious objection, although the bill Congress passed had granted that right only to individuals. Bachelet promulgated the law on September 14, 2017, and it was published in the official gazette on September 23.
Provisions A doctor must confirm the risk-to-life ground, and two specialist doctors must confirm a fatal fetal anomaly. For rape, a specially constituted health team confirms the circumstances constituting the causal and the gestational age, based on the woman's account and its consistency with the gestational age. The law sets no gestational-age limit for the first two grounds. It also created the dupla, a two-person team that provides information and, if requested, accompaniment. Abortions under the first two grounds have no statutory gestational-age limit, while the rape ground is subject to the statutory 12- or 14-week limit.
Implementation Conscientious objection protocol The government of President Piñera, which took office in March 2018 and had opposed the law, changed the conscientious objection protocol to let private institutions receiving state funds invoke objection. The Ministry of Health had published an earlier protocol on January 27, 2018, and public and private coverage began on January 29. In May 2018 the Comptroller General declared the revised protocol illegal. A new regulation issued in October 2018 again barred publicly funded private institutions from objecting, but lawmakers allied with the government challenged it, and in December 2018 the Constitutional Court declared that provision unconstitutional. The court reasoned that private entities may hold institutional values entitled to respect, so any private health institution, including one receiving public funds, may decline to provide abortions.
Use of the law and access Health ministry projections before the law took effect anticipated 2,500 to 3,000 legal abortions a year, mostly for rape. Actual numbers were far lower: 769 from September 2017 to December 2018, of which only 115 were for rape. Through mid-2026, the ministry's statistics office recorded 7,566 pregnancies that fell within one of the grounds, of which 87.5 percent ended in termination, or 6,627 procedures. The most common ground was fetal non-viability (2,668), followed by risk to the mother (1,917) and rape (1,899). Rape-ground procedures rose from 117 in 2018 to 404 in 2024 and 350 in 2025. Between June 2024 and June 2025 there were 1,065 procedures, and all abortions among girls under 14 who accessed an abortion under the law were on the rape ground.
Conscientious objection is the most frequently cited barrier. In June 2019, 50.5 percent of obstetricians in the public system had declared themselves objectors in rape cases. Ministry data from October 2025 showed 40.4 percent of public-sector obstetricians objecting on the rape ground, 20 percent on fetal non-viability, and 13.7 percent on risk to the woman's life. Thirty public hospitals had objection rates of 40 percent or more for rape, and in Cauquenes every obstetrician objected. Researchers and advocacy groups have also documented limited public information, inconsistent training, pressure on women to view ultrasounds, and skepticism toward rape survivors' accounts. Advocacy organizations and some legal scholars call the law inadequate, while opponents of the law, who argue that it should be repealed or narrowed, cite the same low figures to argue that demand for abortion is limited.
Later reform efforts 2021 bill On September 28, 2021, the Chamber of Deputies voted 75–68, with two abstentions, to take up a bill decriminalizing abortion up to 14 weeks. On November 30, 2021 the full chamber rejected it 65–62, with one abstention, and the bill was archived.
Constitutional proposals The 2022 draft constitution, written by an elected convention, would have provided unrestricted access to abortion under its article 61. Voters rejected it by 61.86 percent to 38.14 percent in September 2022. The 2023 draft, written by a more conservative council, retained a constitutional provision protecting the life of the unborn but changed its wording from referring to the unborn as "that" to "who." Critics argued that the wording could create grounds for challenges to Law 21,030, while supporters argued that the 2017 law would not be affected. These were competing interpretations of the potential legal effect of the proposed wording, rather than an established consequence of its adoption. Voters rejected that proposal too, by 55.76 percent to 44.24 percent, in December 2023. A 2024 study of voter preferences concluded that the clause on unborn life was pivotal in the defeat. Chile's 1980 constitution therefore remained in force.
Boric's 2025 bill