The girl told a local television station: "It will be like having a doll in my arms. I'm going to love the baby very much, even though it comes from that man who hurt me. The girl's mother has caused outrage by defending her boyfriend, saying that the relationship was consensual. "This is an injustice against my partner," she told a court on Friday. Abortion was prohibited under the rule of General Augusto Pinochet, but an estimated 100,000 women in the country have "back street" abortions every year. "I am in favour of protecting life and human dignity from the moment of conception until natural death," Mr Pinera wrote in an article last year. That is why I am also against euthanasia and the death penalty. Some argue that Chile would be a less modern and civilised country if we did not imitate other nations which are supposedly more developed - where abortion is not only legal, but widely accepted. But they are wrong. Chileans will vote for a new president in November - Mr Pinera is unable to stand for a second term - and his Right-wing coalition is likely to be ousted in favour of Michelle Bachelet's party. Mrs Bachelet, a paediatrician who was Chile's president before Mr Pinera, was the head of the UN women's agency during his term and has said that she favours legalising abortion in cases of rape or risks to the health of the pregnant woman or child. "She's a girl who needs to be protected and therefore I think a therapeutic abortion, in this case because of rape, would be in order," she said. Uruguay recently passed a law authorising elective abortions in the first three months of pregnancy in the most liberal law of its kind in Latin America. Many countries in the region outlaw abortion in all circumstances, while neighbouring Argentina only permits it in the case of rape.