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Duterte blasts Iceland’s abortion law, hopes country will ‘freeze in time’
- Philippine President said Iceland, which introduced a UN resolution to investigate his war on drugs, was concerned about human rights but allowed abortions until the end of the 22nd week of pregnancy
- Abortion is illegal in the Philippines, but an estimated 600,000 women have abortions every year
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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has taken aim at Iceland for allowing abortions, saying he hopes the Nordic island critical of his illegal drugs crackdown would “freeze in time”.
Duterte’s comments come a month after the United Nations Human Rights Council approved a resolution introduced by Iceland for a probe into thousands of extrajudicial killings in the Philippine war on drugs. The resolution called on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to produce a report by June 2020. The latest war on drugs figures from the police put the death toll at 6,600 since 2016.
In a speech on Tuesday night to mark the 31st anniversary of a land reform programme in Quezon City in Manila, Duterte, 74, explained that Iceland is concerned about drug lords and killings yet it recently passed a law allowing abortion until the end of the 22nd week of pregnancy.
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“But do you know that in Iceland they allow abortion up to six months? You add one more... month and you have the principle of intrauterine life. That if you give birth at six months, the baby will survive,” he said.
Duterte’s audience cheered when he described Icelandic leaders as “idiots” for passing the law. He has previously mocked Iceland as an ice-eating nation without understanding of his country’s problems.
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Last month, the country’s highest-ranking lawmaker said the UN resolution should be ignored and Iceland should be investigated instead for human rights abuses.
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