Argentina rejects bill to legalise abortion after 15-hour debate
● Demonstrators from both sides brave heavy rain in peaceful protests
Argentina’s Senate has rejected a bill to legalise elective abortion, a defeat for a grassroots movement that came closer than ever to achieving the decriminalisation of the procedure in the homeland of Pope Francis.
Politicians debated for more than 15 hours and voted 38-31 against the measure that would have legalised abortion in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.
The decision could now echo across Latin America, where anti-abortion forces remains strong even if the Roman Catholic Church has lost a degree of influence and moral authority due to secularisation, an outof-touch clerical caste and an avalanche of recent sex abuse scandals.
For long hours, thousands of supporters wearing green handkerchiefs that represent the effort to legalise abortion and opponents of the measure wearing light blue braved the heavy rain and cold temperatures in Argentina’s winter to watch the debate on large screens set up outside the Congress.
The demonstrations were largely peaceful, but after the vote, small groups of protesters clashed with police, throwing firebombs and setting up flaming barricades.
Police officers responded by firing tear gas at the groups.
Pushed by a wave of demonstrations by women’s groups, the lower house had already passed the measure and conservative President Mauricio Macri had said that he would sign it, even though he favours anti-abortion. “Regardless of the result, today, democracy wins,” Mr Macri said ahead of the vote.
In Argentina, abortion is only allowed in cases of rape and risks to a woman’s health.
Thousands of women, most of them from poorer areas, are hospitalised each year due to complications that are linked
to unsafe abortions. Backers of the measure said that legalising abortion would save the life of many women in the country.
The Health Ministry estimated in 2016 that Argentina sees as many as half a million clandestine abortions each year, with dozens of women dying as a result.
The Catholic Church and other groups opposed it, saying it violated Argentine law, which guarantees life from the moment of conception.
In recent years, Argenti- na 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.
“There are positive points that have come out of this,” said Buenos Aires provincial governor Maria Eugenia Vidal, referring to the large largely peaceful rival demonstrations. Even when there are differing ways of thinking, there’s a plaza in peace right now, with thousands of people defending their convictions,” she said.
The issue has pitted the Catholic Church against feminist groups and physicians against physicians.
While abortion rights activists waited for the decision under umbrellas, opponents gathered on Wednesday night at a “Mass for Life” at the Metropolitan Cathedral, the church of Pope Francis during his tenure as the archbishop of Buenos Aires.
“It’s not about religious beliefs but about a humanitarian reason,” Cardinal Mario Poli, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, told the churchgoers.
Earlier this year Pope Francis denounced abortion as the “white glove” equivalent of the Nazi-era eugenics programme and urged families “to accept the children that God gives them.”
Activists estimate that some 3,030 women in Argentina have died of illegal abortions since 1983.