Abortion bill advances in Argentina
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Lawmakers in Argentina’s lower house on Friday passed a bill that would legalize elective abortions to the 14th week of pregnancy, a proposal from President Alberto Fernandez in response to long-sought demands from women’s rights activists in the homeland of Pope Francis.
The bill still needs approval from the country’s Senate in a debate expected before the end of the year.
The proposed law was approved in a 131-117 vote with six abstentions after a debate that extended from Thursday into the early hours of Friday morning. Some of its backers were lawmakers in the opposition.
Demonstrators in favor of decriminalizing abortion, who had spent the night outside the congress building in Buenos Aires, embraced each other as they listened to the parliamentary speaker reading the vote’s results on screens.
Hundreds of yards away, hundreds of opponents carrying the national flag 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 first 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 only considered in cases of rape or if pregnancy poses a risk to the mother’s health.
Before getting elected one year ago, Fernandez had promised to push for making abortion voluntary and cost-free.
While the bill passed the lower house, the outlook is less clear in the country’s Senate. Two years ago, during the administration of 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 had appealed to legislators for “a second of reflection on what respect for life means,” echoing the position of Pope Francis that abortion is part of today’s “throwaway culture” that doesn’t respect the dignity of the unborn, the weak or elderly.
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 Free and Safe Legal 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 finish writing the rights and move on to the stage of equality.”
“May abortion be legal and free! Let it be law!” Lospennato said.
But lawmakers from several parties have argued that abortions would be a violation of the American Convention on Human Rights, which they say takes precedence over the the national Constitution and that establishes that the right to life should be protected by law, “in general, from the moment of conception.”
Opposition legislator Graciela Camano equated legalizing abortion to “the lack of political capacity to solve society’s problems.”
“We are proposing for the solution to the problem to remain in the private sphere of women” she said.
If passed in the Senate, abortions would be possible beyond the 14th week if the pregnancy is the result of rape or if it endangers the person carrying the fetus.
Those below the age of 16 would exercise “their rights through their legal representatives” and can seek “legal assistance” in cases of “conflict of interest.”