BUENOS AIRES – Argentina on Wednesday became the largest country in Latin America to legalize abortions, an important voice in a conservative region and a victory for a grassroots movement that turned years of marches into political power.
The Senate vote in the Senate gripped the country early this morning and the approval of the measure – by a wider-than-expected margin of 38 to 29, with one abstention – comes after 12 hours of often dramatic debate, which exposed tensions . between the long-dominant Roman Catholic Church, whose influence is waning, and a growing feminist movement.
As it unfolded, the Senate debate was closely followed by masses of opponents and advocates of abortion rights, who camped in the plaza around the neo-classical palace of Congress, cheering, cheering and praying as they tried to make a handful of resolutions swing. senators to their respective camps.
Argentine President Alberto Fernández has vowed to sign the bill, making it legal for women to terminate pregnancies for up to 14 weeks for any reason. Thereafter, there will be exceptions for rape and maternal health.
The effects of the legislative vote are likely to be tortuous in Latin America, which will stimulate reproduction rights advocates elsewhere in the region and make them hopeful that other socially conservative countries can follow suit.
Uruguay, Cuba and Guyana are the only other countries in Latin America that have allowed abortion on request. Argentina, like a number of other countries in the region, has earlier allowed abortions in the event of rape or if the pregnancy poses a risk to a woman’s health; other Latin American countries have stricter limits or total bans.
“The legalization of abortions in Argentina is a huge victory that will protect fundamental rights and inspire change in Latin America,” said Tamara Taraciuk Broner, U.S. Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch. “However, it is predictable that it will also mobilize pro-life groups.”
Argentina’s legalization of abortion was a striking reprimand from Pope Francis, who injected himself on the eve of the vote into the bitter political debate in his homeland and praised a group of women from impoverished neighborhoods for his activism against abortion. It was also a setback for the rapidly growing evangelical Protestant churches in the country, who teamed up with the Catholic Church to oppose the change.
“I feel a deep anxiety that I do not respect the right to life in this country,” said Abigail Pereira, 27, who was in Buenos Aires and was protesting against legalization. “But I will keep fighting.”
The vote was an important legal victory for Mr. Fernández, the center-left president of Argentina, who put women’s rights at the center of his government’s agenda.
But in the first place, it was a victory for Argentina’s proponents of abortion rights, which recently paved the way for other profound shifts in the country’s cultural and political landscape – including marriage equality, gender equality initiatives and transgender rights – and gave Argentina a important place made. the global changes that have gained wider traction in the region.
The lower house of Argentina, the Chamber of Deputies, approved the bill earlier this month with a vote of 131 to 117. It also adopted a similar measure two years ago, but it had to fail in the Senate 38 to 31; the then president, Mauricio Macri, said he was personally against legalization, but promised not to veto the bill if it is passed by Congress.
Mr Fernández is campaigning for the presidency on a platform that includes abortion rights, gender equality and gay and transgender rights, and he has kept those promises to a degree that has surprised even some of his supporters.
Supporters of the abortion measure, including Senator Norma Durango, said the legalization of abortion would merely overshadow the practice. According to researchers, hundreds of thousands of underground abortions are performed in Argentina every year.
About 40,000 women were hospitalized for complications related to abortions in 2016, according to the latest available data from the Ministry of Health, while at least 65 women died from complications between 2016 and 2018, according to a report by Argentina’s Access to Safe Abortion Network.
“I am sitting here today representing all the women who have died in clandestine abortions,” she said. Durango said, who was the first lawmaker to speak during the debate that began Tuesday. “Abortion is a reality and it has been going on since the earliest times.”
The attempt to relax Argentina’s abortion laws is decades old, but it was boosted by the feminist movement Ni Una Menos, which was formed in 2015 to protest violence against women and has since been the driving force behind the abortion legalization campaign.
The symbol of this effort in Argentina – green handkerchiefs – has caught on in several Latin American countries, including Mexico, where women who have poured themselves into the streets sportingly have demanded more support for their rights.
“The green movement that started in Argentina has taken over the whole region,” said Paula Ávila-Guillen, executive director of the Women’s Equality Center. “Any activist from Mexico to Argentina wears the green handkerchief as a symbol of legalizing abortion.”
A few hours before the Senate took the measure on Tuesday afternoon, Pope Francis, who as a pope tried to renounce political debates in Argentina, issued a message addressed to the handful of senators who had not yet made their views clear. .
“The Son of God was born as an outcast to tell us that every outcast is a child of God,” he wrote on Twitter. “He came into the world when every child comes into the world weak and vulnerable, so that we can learn to accept our weaknesses with tender love.”
Catholic and evangelical leaders called on supporters to hold a day of prayer and fasting on Monday to reflect on ‘the murder of so many innocent children’. Church leaders work throughout the year to galvanize faithful, and major anti-abortion marches have taken place across the country.
Opponents of legal abortions, who tend to wear baby blue, showed off a large doll on Tuesday that looks like a fetus they sprayed with false blood.
Mr Fernández, a law professor who has long supported the legalization of abortions, made it a promise for the campaign and an early legislative priority once he took office at the end of 2019. The decision brought political risks as he took the reins of a difficult economy. it has been in a recession for two years and shortly thereafter ordered one of the most severe coronavirus closures in the world.
But Mr. Fernández and his vice president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, saw abortion as one of the few topics on their agenda that they could advance amid an avalanche of challenges. Ms Kirchner, who led Argentina as president from 2007 to 2015, has opposed the legalization of abortions for most of her political career.
Her stance changed in the run-up to the 2018 referendum, when tens of thousands of women across Argentina protested to legalize abortion access on request. Me. Kirchner, who was then a senator, said her daughter played a key role in changing plans.
“Through our years of activism, we have succeeded in getting people to change their minds,” said Celeste Mac Dougall, an advocate for abortion rights. “Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is the most obvious example that opinions can change.”
Daniel Politi reports from Buenos Aires and Ernesto Londoño from Rio de Janeiro.