Argentina yesterday became one of only a handful of South American nations to legalize abortion, a landmark decision in a country where the Catholic Church has long held sway.
Argentine Senate President Cristina Kirchner confirmed the vote, after more than 12 hours of debate, with thousands of pro-choice activists celebrating on the streets of Buenos Aires.
Hundreds of thousands of illegal terminations are carried out every year with at least 3,000 women dying after backstreet abortions since the 1980s, said Argentine President Alberto Fernandez, who proposed the bill earlier this year.
Photo: AFP
“After so many attempts and years of struggle that cost us blood and lives, today we finally made history,” said protester Sandra Lujan, a 41-year-old psychologist. “Today we leave a better place for our sons and daughters.”
The landmark bill in the country of 44 million succeeded despite strong opposition from Evangelical Christians and traditional Roman Catholics — with Pope Francis posting on Twitter his tacit disapproval of change ahead of the vote.
Human Rights Watch Americas director Jose Miguel Vivanco hailed the decision as a historic step, and said that he hoped it would energize other governments to legalize abortion in Latin America.
“The criminalization of abortion has failed. It’s time to end it,” he wrote on Twitter.
The new legislation allows voluntary terminations up to 14 weeks of pregnancy, and was approved 38 to 29 with one abstention.
The vote overturns a similar one in 2018, which ultimately foundered in the Senate by 38 votes to 31.
Only Cuba, Guyana and Uruguay allow voluntary terminations in South America, which has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the world.
In Argentina, terminations were previously allowed in only two instances: rape, and danger to the mother’s life.
The bill was proposed by Fernandez and passed the Argentine Chamber of Deputies on Dec. 11.
“I’m Catholic, but I have to legislate for everyone. Every year about 38,000 women are taken to hospital due to [clandestine] abortions and since the restoration of democracy [in 1983] more than 3,000 have died,” Fernandez said earlier.
After the law was passed, Fernandez wrote on Twitter: “Today we are a better society that expands rights to women and guarantees public health.”
“The son of God was born discarded to tell us that every person discarded is a child of God,” Pope Francis, who is Argentine, wrote on Twitter earlier yesterday.
While not explicitly mentioning the vote, his comment was interpreted by many as encouraging the senators to vote against the bill.
More than 60 percent of Argentines call themselves Catholic, a National Council for Scientific and Technical Research survey found last year.
Another survey this year found that more than half of Argentia’s Catholics supported abortion in some circumstances — with about 22 percent supporting it, and about 17 percent rejecting it in all cases.
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