SANTO DOMINGO.- The Constitutional Revisory Assembly approved Article 30 which stipulates "the right to the life is inviolable from conception to the death. The penalty of death will not be established, pronounced nor applied, in any case."

To ratify Article 30, which will now be 38, 128 Assembly members voted for and 34 against, although only 108 were needed, equal to two thirds of the lawmakers.

All of the opposition PRD party legislators voted to approve the controversial Article, except for Agne Berenice Contreras and Josefa Castillo, whereas those of the ruling PLD, 55 voted for and 32 against.

The text promoted by pro life groups, including the churches, whose representatives were in the session, was approved after a long debate with more than 20 Assembly members taking part.

For the second time Assembly vice president Julio Cesar Valentin read Article 4 of the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights which states that "The right to life is inviolable, generally, from the conception to the death," but was also rejected

The lawmaker Isabel Bonilla said it was regretful that the electoral environment influenced the debate on the right to life, from her colleagues’ fear of being penalized in the ballot boxes, and maintained that the issue should be a topic for the Penal Code.