Managua, September 4 (teleSUR-RHC)-- The Nicaraguan women rights group “Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir” asked Pope Francis on Wednesday not to consider abortion in certain circumstances a sin, a few days after the Pontiff made a declaration on this matter.

The special circumstances include “when the pregnancy is the product of a rape, when the mother is in a poor health or a bad economic situation, and when girls have been sexually abused,” they told him in an open letter.

One day earlier, Pope Francis said all priests will be able to forgive abortions – including both the women and the doctors performing the procedure – during the upcoming Holy Year, but maintaining that it was a sin.

The feminist group also requested “all ecclesiastical authorities to stop stigmatizing women who chose to abort and stop pressuring civil authorities so they would be persecuted and sentenced as criminals.”

Ecclesiastical authorities also must “apologize over the physical, moral and spiritual damage that affected millions of women who aborted and lacked their mercy.”

Therapeutic abortion has been treated as a crime in Nicaragua since 2007 when a bill granted the request of Catholic and Evangelist lobbies. Before the reform, therapeutic abortion was legal with the agreement of a mother's relative and three documents from the Ministry of Health.