Buenos Aires – Argentina on Wednesday became the largest nation in Latin America to win a grassroots movement to legalize abortion, a landmark vote in the Rousseau region and turn years of rallies into political power.
The nation was gripped early in the morning by a high-stakes vote in the Senate, and the approval of the move – with one omission, at the expected wide margin of 38 to 29 – came after 12 hours of dramatic debate revealing tensions. Among the long influential Roman Catholic Church, whose influence is waning, and the growing feminist movement.
As it unfolded, the Senate debate was closely watched by both opponents and supporters of abortion rights, who camped in the plaza around the congressional Neo-Classical Palace, singing, rejoicing and praying as they tried to ka way out a handful of uncertainties. Senators for their respective camps.
The President of Argentina, Alberto Fernandez, has promised that women will have to sign a bill to legalize termination of pregnancy for up to 14 weeks for any reason. After that, there will be exceptions to rape and maternal health.
The effects of the legalization vote are likely to spread to Latin America, with advocates of reproductive rights elsewhere in the region and hope that other socially aligned nations may follow suit.
Uruguay, Cuba and Guyana are the only other countries in Latin America to allow abortion on request. Argentina, like many other countries in the region, has previously allowed abortions in cases of rape or if the pregnancy posed a risk to a woman’s health; Other Latin American countries have strict limits or complete sanctions.
“Legalizing abortion in Argentina is a huge victory that protects fundamental rights and will transform Latin America,” said Tamasia Broner, deputy director of Human Rights Watch America. “It’s predictable, though, that this will also gather pro-life groups.”
Argentina’s legalization of abortion was a shocking rebuke to Pope Francis, who on the eve of the vote plunged himself into the bitter political controversy of his hometown, and praised a group of women from poor neighborhoods for their activism against abortion. It was also a shock to the country’s fast-growing evangelical Protestant churches, which joined forces with the Catholic Church to oppose change.
“I feel a deep sense of anguish that I don’t want the right to life in this life,” said Abigail Pereira, 27, who left Buenos Aires to protest the legality. “But I’ll keep fighting.”
The vote was a major legislative victory for Mr Fernandez, a left-wing president at the center of Argentina who has made women’s rights central to his administration’s agenda.
But primarily, it was a victory for Argentine-origin abortion-rights advocates, who have recently paved the way for another deeper shift in the country’s cultural and political landscape – including marital equality, gender equality initiatives and transgender rights. Bellwater of change that receives traction.
Argentina’s lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, approved the bill by a vote of 131 to 117 earlier this month. He took the same step two years ago, just failing in the Senate, 38 to 31; The president at the time, Mauricio Marie Cree, said he was personally opposed to the legalization, but did not guarantee a veto if the bill was passed by Congress.
Mr Fernandez campaigned for the presidency on a platform that included abortion rights, gender equality and gay and transgender rights, and he delivered those promises to a degree that even surprised some of his supporters.
Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online. Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online. Researchers say that hundreds of thousands of abortions are performed in Argentina each year.
Approximately 40,000 women were hospitalized in 2016 for abortion-related complications, according to the latest available figures from the Ministry of Health, with at least 65 women dying from complications between 2016 and 2018, according to a report from Argentina’s To Safe Safe Abortion Network.
The first MLA to speak during the debate, which started on Tuesday, was Ms. “I represent all the women here today who have died after a secret abortion,” Durango said. “Abortion is a reality and it has been happening since ancient times.”
Efforts to repeal Argentina’s abortion law are decades old, but it has been fueled by the feminist movement Una Menos, which was formed in 2015 to protest violence against women and has since been the driving force behind the abortion legalization campaign.
In Argentina, the symbol of that effort – the green handkerchief – has caught on in many Latin American countries, including Mexico, where women sportsmen have taken to the streets to demand more support for their rights.
“The green movement that started in Argentina has taken over the whole region,” said Paula Avila-Gillene, executive director of the Women’s Equality Center. “Any activist, from Mexico to Argentina, wears a green handkerchief as a symbol of legalizing abortion.”
Just hours before the Senate took the step on Tuesday afternoon, Pope Francis, who tried to distance himself from the political controversy in Argentina as a pontiff, delivered a message to a handful of senators who did not clarify his position.
“The Son of God was born an outcast, to let us know that every outcast is a child of God,” he wrote on Twitter. “It came into the world because every child comes into the world, weak and vulnerable, so 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 address the “killing of many innocent children.” Church leaders have been working throughout the year to galvanize believers, and anti-abortion marches have been held across the country.
On Tuesday, opponents of legal abortion, who tended to wear the baby blue, displayed a large finger that looked like a fetus, which They sprinkled with fake blood.
Mr. Fernandez, a law professor who has long advocated legalizing abortion, promised him a campaign, and once he takes office in late 2019, the initial legal priority. The decision took political risks, as it took the reins of a troubled economy. It has been in recession for two years and immediately ordered one of the strictest coronavirus lockdown in the world.
But Mr. Fernandez and his vice president, Christina Fernandez de Kirchner, came to see abortion as one of the few items on their agenda that they could pursue amidst a flurry of challenges. Ms. Kirschner, who led Argentina as president from 2007 to 2015, has opposed legalizing abortion for most of his political career.
Her position shifted in favor of the vote in 2018, when thousands of women protested in Argentina in support of making abortion access to a legal request. Ms. Kirschner, who was a senator at the time, said his daughter played a key role in changing his mind.
“Over the years, we’ve managed to get people to change their position,” said Celeste McDougall, an advocate for abortion rights. “” Christina Fernandez de Kirchner is the clearest example of how opinions can change. “
Daniel Politi reports Ernesto Lundo from Beyonc i Rresres and Rio de Janeiro.
