The Colombian government is weighing the legalization of all abortions until the 12th week of pregnancy without requiring women justify their decision, a high-ranking government official said this week at a local conference.

The administration of President Juan Manuel Santos plans to put forward a bill that would "increase the protection of women in Colombia, given that statistics show more than 200,000 cases of illegal abortions [per year]," Attorney General Eduardo Montealegre said, according to El Universal.

The data "also indicate that there is a very high rate of maternal deaths that is the result of illegal abortions that take place under insufficient technical conditions," he added.

Under the proposal, which will be introduced next week, women would be free to have an abortion, as long as it takes place within the first 12 weeks of their pregnancies.

Until now, Colombian law only allowed the procedure if the pregnancy presented a risk to the life or health of the mother; if serious malformations of the fetus rendered it unviable; or if the pregnancy was the result of rape, incest, or artificial insemination or implantation of a fertilised ovum without consent, Colombia Reports reported.

Those conditions would continue to apply for those seeking to abort after the 12-week deadline, Montealegre noted, according to El Universal.

"In other words, after three months of pregnancy, the situation of the woman needs to be examined," the attorney general explained.

While experts believe that up to 400,000 abortions currently take place every year in the country, only about 7,000 of the procedures are legal, Colombia Reports noted. The proposed changes would equate the legal situation in Colombia with that in Uruguay, Guyana and French Guiana -- the only South American nations where abortions are currently allowed upon request.

Even though the World Health Organization estimates that the risk of a death is 1 in 100,000 in those countries where women do not have access to legal abortion procedures, several countries in Latin America still ban the procedure entirely.