The constitutional tribunal of the Dominican Republic has issued a landmark ruling overturning a law pushed through by President Danilo Medina. The new law, which had been personally advocated by the president as part of a broader revision of the criminal code, introduced a paragraph that would have allowed abortion to be legalised in cases of rape or incest, or when doctors deemed the preborn child to be suffering from illnesses or disabilities which rendered them ‘incompatible with life.’ After the president signed the law, two non-profit organisations filed a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality, arguing that it violated the constitutional protection of Article 37 of the Dominican Republic's constitution, which guarantees the right to life as inviolable from conception to death.