Argentina’s lower house approves bill legalizing abortion

BUENOS AIRES — Lawmakers in Argentina’s lower house passed a bill Friday that would legalize abortion in most cases, a proposal from President Alberto Fernández in response to longsought demands from women’s rights activists.

The bill, which needs approval from the country’s Senate in a debate expected before the end of the year, allows for voluntary abortions to be carried out up to the 14th week of pregnancy.

The proposed law was approved in a 131- 117 vote, with six abstentions, after a marathon debate that extended from Thursday into the early hours of Friday.

Demonstrators in favor of decriminalizing abortion, who had spent the night outside the Congress building in Buenos Aires, erupted with joy and embraced one another as they watched the parliamentary speaker read the vote’s results on screens. Many of them wore face masks in the green that has become a symbol of their movement.

Hundreds of yards away, hundreds of opponents dressed in light blue and carrying the national f lag deplored the result, with some shedding tears.

Latin America has some of the world’s most restrictive abortion laws. Mexico City, Cuba and Uruguay are among the few places in the region where women can undergo abortions during the f irst 12 weeks of pregnancy, regardless of the circumstances.

Currently, many women who have an abortion in Argentina, as well as people who assist them with the procedure, can face prosecution. Exemptions are considered only in cases of rape or if pregnancy poses a risk to the mother’s health.

Although the bill passed the lower house, the outlook in the Senate is not clear. Two years ago, during the administration of the more conservative President Mauricio Macri, the upper house voted against a similar bill to legalize abortion after it was narrowly approved by the lower house.

Ahead of Thursday’s debate, the Roman Catholic Church appealed to legislators for “a second of ref lection on what respect for life means,” echoing the position of Pope Francis, an Argentine, that abortion is part of a “throwaway culture” that doesn’t respect the dignity of the unborn, the weak or the elderly.

Before being elected one year ago, Fernández promised to push to make abortion voluntary and cost- free.

Several thousand women seeking abortions have died during unsafe, clandestine procedures in Argentina since 1983, and about 38,000 women are hospitalized every year because of botched procedures conducted in secret, according to the government.

The bill approved Friday follows more than a decade of campaigning by the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion.

Speaking minutes before the congressional debate ended, Silvia Lospennato, one of the opposition lawmakers who backed the ruling party’s initiative, said it was time “to f inish writing the rights and move on to the stage of equality.”

“To each woman who wears the green scarf demanding to decide, to those who never lower their arms: May abortion be legal and free! Let it be law!” Lospennato said.