Santiago de Chile, January 22 (RHC-PL) -- Relatives of victims of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet have reacted angrily to an anti-abortion campaign group seeking to place them on the same level.

Speaking to journalists, the Association of Relatives of the Detained-Disappeared (AFDD) called it “disrespectful” to compare the pain of what happened in the bloody dictatorship of Pinochet to the issue of abortion.

"It's a lack of respect, and an open provocation to those who embrace the cause of human rights, for the families of victims of disappearances and for the whole country," the organization said.

In his strongest criticism, the AFDD deplores those who compared abortion to enforced disappearance, "they have never raised their voices for the women killed or disappeared during the dictatorship of Pinochet, among which there were nine pregnant."

In this regard, the AFDD recalled that enforced disappearance is a crime recognized by the United Nations, which daily affects hundreds of human beings in the world and in Chile became a state policy in the Pinochet era.

Chile, which generally is a fairly conservative country, faces a debate set up by the President of the Republic, Michelle Bachelet, with the initiative to establish so-called therapeutic abortion.

It covers three grounds: risk to the life of the mother, risk to the fetus and in cases of rape.