Argentina has announced that it will drop criminal charges against women accused of having abortions following the historic decision by the government to legalize the procedure.
The announcement offers hope to the mostly poor and marginalized women who face criminal sanctions. But ongoing problems such as obstetric violence and sexism in the justice system show that the fight for reproductive justice is not over.
The new law, passed on December 30, allows abortion for whatever reason during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy, making Argentina the largest country in Latin America to allow the procedure in general. It explicitly covers anyone with the ability to carry, including transgender and non-binary people.
This is an important victory for women’s rights in a region where the Catholic Church has a strong influence.
Women rarely spent years in prison on charges of abortion in Argentina, but there were frightening exceptions. In the conservative province of Tucumán, Belén (not her real name) spent almost three years behind bars after suffering a miscarriage before a team led by feminist lawyer Soledad Deza managed to drop her conviction.
“The almost three years that I have been in prison have been a very painful time for me because it was terrible to be a prisoner for something I did not do,” Belén said in a written statement.
And even if hospitals do not report patients to the police, women seeking treatment for abortion sometimes find themselves on the receiving end of cruel and degrading treatment.
Analía Ruggero went to a hospital on the outskirts of Buenos Aires at the age of 22, when she suffered complications due to an abortion she caused through pills. When the doctors found out she had an abortion, they initially refused to treat her, but they also told her that if she went elsewhere, she could get an infection and die. Eventually Ruggero was admitted, but while they were working, the medical staff whispered her insults. “The nurse injects me and says under her breath, ‘You had an abortion! You are trash, who do you think is coming here? ‘”
Ruggero was then left to recover on a bed without sheets or blankets in a corner of the hall that had been crawling through cockroaches.
Ruggero was delighted with the new law. “If the first nurse I come to does not want to do it, there is a series of medics behind her who are willing to do it,” she said.
It is unclear how many women will turn down their cases due to the new law. A recent report – by the Argentine human rights group Cels, campaigners for abortion rights and the San Martín University Center – identified 1,532 abortion cases that could be covered in the past eight years. But not all provinces responded to the researchers’ request for information, and other fighters believe the total is likely to be significantly higher.
“All women who have been criminalized … will have the advantage of having their cases dismissed because there is a retroactive application of the most favorable criminal law,” said Argentine Minister for Women, Gender and Diversity Elizabeth Gómez Alcorta , said.
Fighters are now demanding an investigation into the issue of women possibly being prosecuted for a serious crime, such as murder, after having an abortion.
The Cels report identified several women serving long prison terms for crimes such as serious manslaughter after experiencing obstetric problems such as stillbirths and miscarriages late in their pregnancies. Most were extremely poor.
María Laura Garrigós, Deputy Secretary of Prisons at the Argentine Ministry of Justice, said there may be women in jail for murder after having abortions, especially in Argentina’s more conservative northern provinces, although these cases in general past the 14 week limit. . “It’s a matter of interpretation – of when the fetus ceases to be a fetus,” she said. “In general, it is justice that comes from men,” she said. “Judges are usually men.”
The challenge is to ensure that the legal right of women to decide on their bodies is upheld in practice. ‘I know women who have been working on this for 50 years. “These structures will not only rest, but will continue to struggle to solve these kinds of problems,” Garrigós said. “This is progress we are making against patriarchy.”