Argentine President Alberto Fernández announced Sunday that he will send Congress a proposal to legalize voluntary abortion, an initiative that was rejected two years ago.
Dozens of female lawmakers rose to their feet in applause at the announcement, which came during a speech opening the congressional session.
Argentine law permits abortions in cases of rape or where a mother’s life is at risk. But even many women in those conditions find it difficult to obtain abortions.
“The current legislation on abortion is not effective…. It has condemned many women of scarce resources to turn to clandestine abortion practices, putting at risk their health and many times their lives,” Fernández said.
A measure to legalize elective abortions passed the lower house of Congress in 2018, but failed in the Senate after meeting heavy resistance from the Catholic Church and conservatives. According to estimations by health ministry Argentina saw as many as half a million clandestine abortions a year.
Thousands of women took to the streets in Argentina on Wednesday to support the bid to do away with the country’s restrictive abortion laws. Across the country, as they did in 2018, demonstrators waved or wore the green handkerchief that has become synonymous with the abortion rights movement.
By becoming the first Argentine president to support the legalization of abortion, Mr. Fernández stands to please many in his center-left base when he delivers Argentina’s equivalent of the State of the Union address next month.
In making the issue a central theme of the political debate, he might divert attention from Argentina’s grim economic situation as it struggles with negative economic growth amid a soaring debt crisis.
Several cases of pregnancy resulting from rape and one involving a nonviable fetus have sparked debate about abortion in Argentina since the beginning of the 21st century. In 2001, 25-year-old Luciana Monzón, from Rosario, Santa Fe, discovered that the fetus in her womb, at 16 weeks of gestation, was anencephalic. There was virtually no chance of survival for the baby once it left the womb. Four weeks later she asked for judicial authorization to terminate the pregnancy. First one judge and then another excused themselves from dealing with the request, and the case went to the Supreme Court of Santa Fe, which dictated that the first judge should decide. By that time, however, Monzón had decided to take it to term, because of the delay. The baby was born spontaneously, weighing only 558 grams, and died 45 minutes after birth.
It is a common belief in Argentina that, the higher the economic status of the pregnant woman, the easier it is for her to get a safe abortion, while poorer women often cannot afford a clandestine procedure under sanitary conditions or post-abortion care.
