Arguments from the debate
After a marathon, historic, late-night session in the National Congress, the Senate voted early Thursday morning to reject a bill to legalise elective abortion up until the 14th week of pregnancy.
The news came as little surprise to most. Several senators earlier this week had turned their back on the legislation in its current form, stating they would not approve the bill. Nonetheless, lawmakers delivered impassioned speeches, with many using lengthy statements to declare their convictions.
Senator Esteban Bullrich (Buenos Aires Province-Cambiemos) argued: “There are women who take the tragic decision to have an abortion, [but] it’s not a failure of that woman, it’s a failure of our society. This bill, which is bad, does not aim to reduce abortion, but it legalises this failure.”
Senator Mario Fiad (Jujuy-UCR) said abortion was a “tragedy” in his speech, a word echoed by many legislators who were against the legislation, arguing its introduction would be “unconstitutional.”
“I am saying this to the girls that are outside: this is a monumental triumph,” countered Senator Fernando ‘Pino’ Solanas (Proyecto Sur-BA City) in his speech. “They have managed to introduce a fundamental debate! They did it. Let no-one get carried away by the culture of defeat. To the millions of women who mobilised: no-one can stop the wave of new generations. It will be today or tomorrow, but it will be,”
For her part, Beatriz Mirkin (Tucumán-Justicialista) said: “We have to expand possibilities, not restrict them. The bill does not oblige any woman to abort ... it forces the State to do what must be done so that there are no clandestine abortions.”
Silvina García Larraburu (FpV-Río Negro) attacked the government in her speech: “This debate has been flawed and we have been thrown into it in the worst conditions ... duranbarbismo has generated a phenomenal smokescreen.”
Pamela Verasay (Cambiemos-Mendoza), in favour, said simply: “There are no abortions if there is a law, we need the law because there are abortions.”
“Let’s recognise that we’re facing a public health tragedy because 3,030 women ,who have died, is a tragedy,” said Magdalena Odarda, a senator for Rio Negro province. “We’re not deciding abortion yes or now. We’re deciding on abortion in a hospital, or illegal abortion, with a clothes hanger, or anything else that puts a woman in a humiliating, degrading situation – it’s torture.”