Government gives green light to abortion vote in Congress after protest places issue back on the agenda
The Mauricio Macri administration will not stop its coalition in Congress from moving forward with a vote on abortion reform, Cabinet Chief Marcos Peña indicated yesterday.
The government will “not put obstacles in the way” of a vote, he told reporters following a Government House meeting among Majority Leader Emilio Monzó and leaders of the Congressional coalition’s PRO, UCR Radical Party and Civic Coalition parties.
Bills to liberalise abortion legislation have traditionally failed to pass the committee level in Congress. Activists and allies within Congress have pushed for abortion legislation every two years.
The announcement by the government caps a fine week for pro-choice advocates and those in favour of reforming existing legislation.
On Mondays, thousands — mainly women — gathered before the Congress building to renew calls for free, legal and safe procedures.
“It’s a parliamentary issue”, Peña told La Nación this week.
Approximately ne-third of maternal deaths in Argentina are a result of clandestine abortions. The government estimates that between 370,000 and 522,000 abortions are performed every year, most of them illegal.
The major hurdle for abortion reformists will be the Senate, where most sitting members have expressed their opposition to more liberal legislation.
PAÑUELAZO
On Monday, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of the capital as sea of green bandanas flooded the streets surrounding the National Congress building.
The pañuelazo, led by the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion (Campaña Nacional por el Derecho al Aborto Legal Seguro y Gratuito), followed on from a tuitázo, where activists and supporters of legal abortion across the globe took to Twitter to share statistics and personal experiences with the hashtag #AbortoLegalYa.
For some attendees, like Sofia Ortiz and Michelle Luna, this was their first pro-abortion demonstration. Both self-described feminists, Ortiz, 15 and Luna ,17, echo edt he Campaign’ s calls for a woman to be able to make decisions about her own body.
“If a woman no longer wants to be pregnant, if she didn’t want the pregnancy and it wasn’t planned or she doesn’t have the means to take care of a child, she should have the right to abort,” said Luna.
The protest also drew seasoned veterans of Argentina’s feminist movements to come out once again to demonstrate.
The women’s movement doesn’t only fight for legal abortion, but it also fights more broadly for their rights,” said Nicolas Cernadas, 22, a student at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA).