Reproductive health clinic raided and closed in Bogota, Colombia.

On December 17, armed criminal investigative forces acting under the direction of Colombia's secretary and deputy secretary of health, brutally raided the main clinic of the Orientame reproductive health care federation in Bogota, Colombia. Allegedly responding to charges that the clinic was providing abortions, investigators entered the clinic without warning, brandishing automatic weapons. Once inside, they threatened and physically assaulted patients and clinic staff, destroyed office equipment, broke down doors, and ordered the clinic to close. Since its founding in 1977, Orientame has become Colombia's second largest non-governmental family planning organization. The federation, consisting of three clinics, provides a full range of obstetric, gynecological, and information services, including family planning counseling, cancer screening, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, prenatal care, adoption placement and counseling, and treatment of incomplete abortion. Serving approximately 250,000 women in its 17 years of operation, Orientame has a sliding fee scale and often waives costs for women who are unable to pay. Were Orientame to close its doors permanently, women facing complications from unsafe abortions but unable to pay private doctors would be forced to go to public hospitals and risk arrest. Despite the country's prohibition of abortions not necessary to save a woman's life, an estimated 288,400 Colombian women underwent abortions in 1989; 57,680 were hospitalized for complications from unsafe or incomplete procedures.