Fight for abortion rights ‘will continue’
Women’s groups across Latin America vowed to keep fighting for a right to abortion despite the Argentine Senate’s rejection of a bill early Thursday, local time, that would have legalised the procedure in Pope Francis’ home country.
There were even expectations that the conservative government might now move to decriminalise abortions following the wave of demonstrations by feminist groups that pushed the legislation before Congress.
Senators debated for more than 15 hours before voting 38-31 against the measure, which would have allowed abortion in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.
Anti-abortion forces celebrated blocking the legislation, which had already passed the Chamber of Deputies in June, and they remain strong in this predominantly Roman Catholic region, even as the church has lost influence due to secularisation and an avalanche of sex abuse scandals. But the grassroots movement behind the legislation was buoyed by coming closer than ever to achieving approval for abortion and activists vowed to keep pressing to expand women’s reproductive rights.
‘‘We were sad that abortion will continue to be clandestine in Argentina and will produce more deaths, but we left happy and proud of the fight that we’re carrying through,’’ said Marina Cardelli, a member of the Feminist Wave group. ‘‘We won because we looked at each other eye-to-eye and we realised how strong we are, and that abortion will eventually be legal.’’
Indeed, conservative President Mauricio Macri, who had promised to sign the legislation if it passed Congress even though he opposes abortion, said after the Senate’s vote that the debate will continue.
‘‘We’ve shown that we have matured as a society, and that we can debate with the depth and seriousness that all Argentines expected ... and democracy won,’’ Macri said.
A legalisation bill cannot be debated again until next year, but Macri’s government is expected to include a provision to decriminalise abortion when it introduces legislation later this month for overhauling the penal code. Although that would not legalise the practice, it is seen as a compromise solution.
In recent years, Argentina has been at the forefront of social movements in the region. In 2010, it became the first country in Latin America to legalise same-sex marriage. More recently, the Ni Una Menos, or Not One Less, movement that was created in Argentina to fight violence against women has grown into a global phenomenon.
‘‘This is a wave,’’ said Claudia Dides, director of Miles, a Chilean non-governmental group that supports sexual and reproductive rights. ‘‘It not only influenced Chile, because we’re close, but all of Latin America, and countries in Africa and Europe.’’
Efforts to ease or tighten abortion restrictions have repeatedly emerged across Latin America in recent years as socially conservative countries grapple with shifting views on once-taboo issues. Chile last year became the last nation in South America to drop a ban on abortions in all cases, though several countries in Central America still have absolute prohibitions.
Demonstrations in support of the Argentine abortion measure were held in countries across the region as Argentina’s senators debated.
‘‘This is obviously a setback,’’ said Ima Guirola of the Women Studies Institute, a group in El Salvador. But she said legalisation advocates will still campaign in her country, which is one of the few in the world to ban abortion under all circumstances. –AP