“We did it”: Argentina finally legalizes abortion (stop pregnancy) (pictorial)

Argentina, where Catholics make up the vast majority of the population, legalized early termination of pregnancy (abortion). It is the first among major South American countries with a strong Catholic tradition.

The Argentine Senate passed midnight after a marathon debate starting at 4 pm on the 29th (local time), and passed a law to legalize the suspension of pregnancy with 38 in favor of 29 opposition and one abstention.

The bill, which will come into force with the President’s signature, allows for termination of pregnancy up to the 14th week of pregnancy. However, it is not punishable for a doctor to refuse the procedure because of religious beliefs.

In the meantime, Argentina has strictly forbidden pregnancy termination. Although abortion of pregnancy was allowed in a very limited way only in cases where the life of a pregnant woman was in danger, or pregnancy caused by sexual assault, but there were many hospitals that were reluctant to perform the procedure.

In the end, women who needed to stop pregnancy had no choice but to undergo treatment through a negative channel, and were exposed to the risks. Every year, hundreds of women are counted to die during pregnancy termination procedures. In 2016, 40,000 women were treated for complications during illegal procedures.

“I am sitting here today on behalf of all the women who died while undergoing an abortion procedure.” Norma Durango, who was the first speaker of the Senate debate, said. “Abortion of pregnancy has been a reality since time immemorial.”

Ordinary Argentinian women took action. As the’You can’t lose a single person’ movement started in 2015 spread across the country, public opinion about legalizing pregnancy termination was on fire, and the politics began to move slowly but gradually.

In early 2018, a bill was passed in the House of Representatives that allowed abortion surgery up to the 14th week of pregnancy. It was a monumental event given the conservative Catholic tradition. However, as the bill was rejected by a difference of 7 votes in the Senate, legalization of termination of pregnancy was broken.

The debate regained speed when President Alberto Fernandez, who promised legalization of abortion, took office at the end of 2019. For the first time in history, the government directly initiated a law to legalize the suspension of pregnancy, and the House of Representatives passed the bill on the 11th with 131 votes in favor of 117 against it. And on this day, unlike two years ago, the Senate put an end to the long history of defining termination of pregnancy as a crime with a majority vote.

Shortly after the bill was passed, thousands of citizens, impatiently awaiting the results outside Congress, cheered by waving green flags, symbolizing the right to stop pregnancy.

“Everyone’s Front” Congressman Monica Macha, a center-left-oriented electoral coalition to which President Fernandez belongs, tweeted, “Sisters, we did it.” Wrote down. “We wrote history. We did it together.”

Reuters said Argentina’s decision is likely to have a significant impact on other South American countries as well. Only Cuba, Uruguay, and parts of Mexico are the only countries in South America that partially allow pregnancy termination.

Catholicism has a history of firmly opposed to abortion. The same goes for Pope Francis, who has been spared a relatively progressive remark on other social issues. He also referred to the cessation of pregnancy through prenatal testing as “infant murder.”

On this day, Pope Francis wrote on Twitter that seemed to encourage opposition to legalization ahead of a vote in his home country’s parliament. Raised.

″The Son of God was born outcast to tell us that all outcasts are children of God. He came into the world as weak as all other children.”

But the Argentine parliament’s choice was different.

“The adoption of legislation to legalize abortion by a large Catholic country like Argentina will fuel the fight for the rights of women in South America,” said Juan Papierre, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“There will be resistance, but it’s not difficult to predict that this (legalizing pregnancy cessation) bill will have a domino effect in the region, just as Argentina enacted same-sex marriage in 2010.”

The New York Times (NYT) reported that the’green movement’ is already spreading in Mexico and other countries in South America, calling for the expansion of the right to stop pregnancy.

Paula Avila-Guyenne, director of the Women’s E-Quality Center, said, “The green movement that started in Argentina has landed in the entire region (South America).”