No to abortion
Senate in Pope’s home country votes down 14-week limit
Pro-abortion activists react outside the National Congress in Buenos Aires on Thursday before senators rejected the bill to legalize abortion. Argentine senators on Thursday voted against legalizing abortion in the homeland of Pope Francis, dashing the hopes of women’s rights groups after the bill was approved by Congress’ lower house in June. Thirty-eight senators voted against the bill, with only 31 in favor
Argentine senators rejected a bill to legalize abortion after an impassioned debate ran into the early hours of Thursday, pushing back against a groundswell of support from a surging abortion rights movement.
The Senate voted 38 to 31 against the proposed measure, which would have legalized a woman’s right to seek an abortion into the 14th week of pregnancy. The bill had narrowly passed in the lower house in July.
Families and clergy in babyblue bandanas gathered outside the congressional palace as the result came in just before 3 am, waving Argentine flags in support of the Catholic Church’s anti-abortion stance in Pope Francis’ home country.
“What this vote showed is that Argentina is still a country that represents family values,” anti-abortion activist Victoria Osuna, 32, told Reuters.
Current Argentine law only permits abortions in cases of rape, or if the mother’s health is at risk.
Abortion rights supporters, clad in green bandanas that have become a symbol of the movement, danced to drum lines and swarmed the city’s streets to the end, despite a biting wind and cold rain.
Many had camped in front of Argentina’s National Congress since Wednesday night.
“I’m still optimistic. It didn’t pass today, but it will pass tomorrow, it will pass the next day,” said abortion rights supporter Natalia Carol, 23. “This is not over.”
Uruguay and Cuba are the only Latin American countries that now have broadly legalized abortion.
In Brazil, the Supreme Court is set to consider whether current law, which allows terminating pregnancies only in cases of rape, fetal deformation or when the mother’s life is in danger, is unconstitutional.
But passing a pro-abortion law will face hurdles in Brazil’s increasingly conservative Congress, with a growing Evangelical Christian caucus that is staunchly opposed.
Women’s rights advocates, however, hope that a more liberal judiciary in Brazil will at least decriminalize abortion to help avoid deaths from botched terminations in a country where hundreds of thousands of women resort to clandestine clinics each year.