Legal abortion returns to the political agenda in Argentina

Mobilization in favor of the legalization of abortion in November 2020 in Buenos Aires Illustrated Service (Automatic) / Europa Press

The discussion about legal abortion in Argentina has returned to the starting grid.

The emergence of the covid-19 pandemic in early March suspended the submission to Congress of the project to legalize the voluntary interruption of pregnancy announced by the president, Alberto Fernández.

Eight months later, and given the growing discontent of the feminist movements, the Government has re-dated it: it will send it this November and the debate will begin in December.

"The president is going to send the abortion legalization project to the National Congress this month and it will be incorporated into the agenda of extraordinary sessions, that is, we are going to promote its treatment in the course of this year," the Secretary of Legal and Technical, Vilma Ibarra, to the

network

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The ordinary sessions of the Argentine Parliament end on November 30 and do not resume their activity until March 2021, but this year extraordinary sessions will be called until February, according to legislative sources.

Argentina has a law on the termination of pregnancy that dates back to 1921. Abortion is a crime punishable by up to four years in prison except in the case of rape or risk to the life or health of the mother.

Despite the legislation, tens of thousands of women clandestinely abort each year and nearly 40,000 require hospitalization for complications from abortions.

In 2018, 39 women died from this preventable cause, according to official statistics.

Feminist and human rights organizations are leading the "Green Tide" that has taken to the streets en masse in recent years to demand a new law.

In recent weeks, they have organized marches and campaigns again to demand that the president send the project this year, without waiting for 2021 in which there are legislative elections and the correlation of forces in the two Houses will change.

"We met this Thursday with the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Sergio Massa, to show him that the treatment and approval of the legalization of pregnancy is urgent," said the National Campaign for the right to legal, safe and free abortion in a release.

"We reiterate that the criminalization of abortion aggravates access to health care and that complications from unsafe abortions add more demands to the health system," adds the document released last week.

In 2018, the Chamber of Deputies approved a project for the voluntary interruption of pregnancy, but the initiative was rejected the following month by the more conservative Senate.

The then president, Mauricio Macri, authorized the debate of a foreign project and promised not to veto the law if it were approved.

This time, the project is promoted by the same Government.

That difference could favor its approval, although there are no certainties and a harsh debate is anticipated again inside and outside Congress.

While waiting to know the text of the official project, Ibarra has anticipated that it is based on the consensus of the legislative debate of 2018. The project allowed abortion without cause until week 14 and extended the deadlines in cases of rape or risk to the mother .

One of the points that generated the most controversy was the prohibition of institutional conscientious objection in public and private centers.

It was also strongly resisted from the most conservative banks that the law provided special protection for girls and adolescents under 15 years of age, considering that their pregnancies represented a risk to their physical and mental health.