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BUENOS AIRES: Thousands of anti-abortion protesters, many of them mobilized by Catholic or evangelical groups, demonstrated in Argentina on Saturday against a new government-backed bill to legalize abortion.
The largest group gathered in Buenos Aires before Congress, which is expected to begin debating legislation next week on an issue that has bitterly divided the traditionally Catholic South American nation.
Protesters across the country carried signs with slogans such as “Save both lives!” and “March for the unborn”.
Jorge Gómez, executive director of Aciera, the Christian Alliance of Evangelical Churches of Argentina, called it a “spontaneous outpouring.”
Argentines who support the right of women to choose also asked that people take to the streets.
The National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion urged sponsors to “paint Argentina green in the coming weeks,” to wave green handkerchiefs as a symbol of women’s rights.
Gomez, however, said it was inappropriate for the bill to be resumed amid the ongoing pandemic and at a time when “Argentine society needs unity to solve structural problems such as poverty.”
This will be the ninth time in the Catholic-majority Argentina, homeland of Pope Francis, that a bill to legalize abortion has been presented in Parliament.
On the last occasion, in 2018, it obtained approval in the Chamber of Deputies but was rejected in the Senate.
This will be the first time that such legislation originates from the Executive Power of the country through a proposal by President Alberto Fernández.
Fernández has said that the new legislation would guarantee “that all women have access to the right to comprehensive health care.”
According to a law first passed in 1920, Argentina allows abortions only in cases of rape or danger to the mother’s life.
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