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OPINION | In favor of abortion: It is a fundamental human right to decide on our own body | CNN

2020-12-29T17:13:42.778Z


Deciding on pregnancy is an essential human right and motherhood cannot be forced. | Opinion | CNN


New project to legalize abortion in Argentina

Editor's note:

Dora Barrancos is a sociologist, PhD in History, principal investigator at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research of Argentina (Conicet), and professor at the University of Buenos Aires.

Barrancos is ad honorem advisor to President Alberto Fernández and was a candidate for the Senate for the Frente de Todos party.

The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author.

See more opinion on CNN en Español.

(CNN Spanish) -

The Congress of Argentina is preparing to debate, for the second time in its history, the project of legal interruption of pregnancy.

The circumstances are very different from those of the first occasion, in 2018, when the then government of President Mauricio Macri authorized the debate, but with the opposite spirit to the sanction of that law, while the current government, headed by Alberto Fernández, of I who am an ad honorem advisor, is preparing to conquer that right, notably delayed in the Latin American region.

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The National Campaign for Legal, Safe and Free Abortion has presented the project year after year.

But this time it is also the Executive Power that sends the proposal for the legal interruption of pregnancy.

It is the first that something like this has happened with regard to this issue in the country.

In Argentina, the long practice of abortion in all social sectors is indisputable.

Several times I have referred to the legitimacy of the abortion practice throughout the ages.

Although in hiding - due to criminal law - many women of all classes have had abortions, and the inexorable fall in birth rates in Argentina since the beginning of the 20th century would not be understood otherwise, the gradual limitation of births that has characterized this country as a pioneer in the matter of “demographic transition” in Latin America (Pantelides and Rofman, 1983).

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Yes, there was a condom, but the popular classes did not buy it and they were also very rudimentary.

There were also enemas, but the most used method was interrupted intercourse.

All the methods were fallible and the pill did not yet exist, which arrived in the early 1960s and was not completely reliable either.

Women from the middle and upper sectors have been able to do it in the offices of experienced professionals and in aseptic conditions, while women from the popular sectors have experienced -very often- infamous interventions, with subsequent health disorders and, most fearsome , with the result of countless fatalities in the course of time.

Although Argentine law admits non-punishable grounds for abortion - serious health circumstances of the pregnant woman and pregnancy resulting from rape - an agreement from the Supreme Court of Justice was necessary for health professionals to act in accordance with the law: they must attend abortions for raped women (and pregnant people).

But unfortunately the care protocols derived from this ruling have not been extended to all jurisdictions in the country due to conservative opposition.

The ruling is federal, but there are conservative elements in the country that oppose the determinations of the Penal Code.

The best known formula for this is people who adhere to religious and non-religious objections, but adhere to the patriarchal mandate of procreation.

They do their best to skip the decision.

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The law that will make abortion possible in Argentina has a justifying dimension as a matter of public health.

Although I do not stop paying that angle, my point of view focuses on the conquest of a fundamental human right such as that of deciding on one's own body, especially in matters of pregnancy.

Pregnancy is, to a large extent, the result of a contingency, but motherhood cannot be left to chance.

Maternity must be involving, and you cannot carry out an unwanted pregnancy.

In other words, deciding on pregnancy is an essential human right and motherhood cannot be compelled.

It does not escape that this perspective is linked to another concomitant human right: the right to enjoy female sexuality, which is inhibited by the punitive patriarchal abortion law.

On this occasion, I believe that there is greater conviction that the project of termination of pregnancy can be approved, because there is greater social acceptance.

We are strongly optimistic that abortion will now be law.

Abortion Decriminalization of abortion

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2020-12-29

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