Abortion Bill fails in Argentina, but movement takes hold across Latin America

They narrowly lost the vote. But as supporters of a Bill to legalise abortion in Argentina began to shake off a stinging defeat in the Senate last Thursday, they took consolation in having galvanised a reproductive-rights movement across Latin America and began to consider how to redirect their activism.

A coalition of young female lawmakers who stunned the political establishment by putting abortion rights at the top of the legislative agenda this year seemed to be on the verge of a historic victory with the Bill. But intense lobbying by Catholic Church leaders and staunch opposition in conservative northern provinces persuaded enough senators to vote against it.

After a 17-hour hearing, the Bill was defeated early on Thursday by a vote of 38-31, with two abstentions. "We will no longer be silent and we won't let them win," said Jimena Del Potro, a 33-year-old designer who fought back tears as she spoke. "Abortion will be legal soon. Very soon."

Despite the setback, many proponents marvelled that Argentine lawmakers had come so close to passing the measure, which would have allowed abortion during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy and fractured the near-total prohibition on abortion in Latin America.

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Demonstrators

The measure had already been approved in the lower chamber of Congress. Current law allows abortions only in cases of rape or when a mother’s life is in danger. The Bill energised hundreds of thousands of demonstrators across Argentina in a women’s rights movement known as Ni Una Menos – Not One Less – and enthused women from Brazil to Mexico.

“What Argentina did was mobilise young women and create the memory that we almost won,” said Debora Diniz, an anthropologist at the University of Brasília who helped write a petition now before Brazil’s supreme court that challenges the constitutionality of its anti-abortion laws.

“They changed the way we talk about abortion,” Diniz said. “It’s not just feminists, intellectuals. It’s young women, your daughter, your sister.”

Ninety-seven per cent of Latin American women live in countries that ban abortion or allow it only in rare instances. Only Uruguay, Cuba, Guyana and Mexico City allow any woman to have an early-term abortion.

Priority

“Abortion rights was a priority and it will be deeply discouraging to have come this far and fail,” said Benjamin Gedan, an Argentina expert at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. But he said women’s rights advocates already had achieved successes, such as the passage of a law that seeks to have an equal number of male and female lawmakers.

“If we make a list of the things we’ve gained and the things we’ve lost, the list of things we’ve gained is much bigger,” said Edurne Cárdenas, a lawyer at the Centre for Legal and Social Studies, a human rights group in Argentina that favours legal abortion. “Sooner or later, this will be law.”

President Mauricio Macri of Argentina opposed the Bill, but said he would have signed it. After the vote, administration officials said they planned to ease abortion penalties in an overhaul of the penal code that will be presented on August 21st. Women getting abortions can be charged with a crime and imprisoned under the current law, although that happens very rarely.

The penal code changes had been in the works for some time, but they appeared to reflect Macri’s realisation that the reproductive-rights movement in Argentina was now an established force.

“The women’s movement mobilised all regions of Argentina; it was intergenerational and exceeded everybody’s expectations,” said Françoise Girard, the president of the International Women’s Health Coalition, which supports legal abortion. “The new generation of teenage girls who came out in such numbers will not be stopped.”

Violent death

The organised movement that pushed the Bill started in 2015 with the brutal murder of a pregnant 14-year-old girl by her teenage boyfriend. Her mother claimed the boyfriend’s family didn’t want her to have the baby. A journalist, Marcela Ojeda, despairing over yet another woman’s violent death, posted a tweet: “Aren’t we going to raise our voice? They’re killing us.”

Her anger struck a chord. Within weeks, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators marched across Argentina, after organising on social media around the hashtag #NiUnaMenos. The slogan spread to neighbouring countries, including Mexico, Peru, Chile and Colombia, where it was used to denounce violence against women, demand reproductive rights and draw attention to related causes.

Analysts said the movement’s improbable rise already had begun to change the region in ways that would have been impossible just years ago. The campaign is credited with inspiring debate on a variety of women’s issues, including domestic violence, a subject that has long been taboo.

Ahead of the vote, supporters rallied in Uruguay, Brazil and neighbouring Chile, where they gathered in front of the Argentine embassy in Santiago, chanting and wearing the green handkerchiefs that symbolised the movement. Many coupled their disappointment at the outcome in Argentina with optimism.

“When you undergo a process like this, you must keep fighting,” said Susana Chávez, an activist in Lima, Peru, who directs the Centre for the Promotion and Defence of Sexual and Reproductive Rights, a nongovernmental group. She said activists were already planning a march in Lima on Saturday.

Public outcry

The abortion debate in Mexico has been accompanied by a public outcry over violence against women and a renewed push for gender equality, led mostly by women’s and human rights groups. Last autumn, protests under the Ni Una Menos banner in at least five Mexican cities demanded an end to violence against women. The protests were a response to the rape and murder of Mara Castillo, a college student, after a taxi ride in the city of Puebla.

In El Salvador, which bans abortion under all circumstances, two Bills were proposed in Congress this spring that were pushed by women’s rights groups and their allies, opening debate on the issue for the first time.

For Argentina, the debate over abortion tugged at the country’s sense of self. It is the birthplace of Pope Francis, who recently denounced abortion as the “white glove” equivalent of the Nazi-era eugenics programme. But the country in recent years has inched away from a close church-state relationship.

In 2010, Argentina became the first country in Latin America to allow gay couples to wed – a move the church fought with a vigour similar to its battle against abortion. Francis, then the archbishop of Buenos Aires, called that Bill a “destructive attack on God’s plan.”

‘Very emotional’

The church had many allies in the abortion debate, including women who spent hours outside Congress in the Argentine winter cold as the debate got under way on Wednesday night. Many expressed relief at the result. “It was a very emotional day,” said María Curutchet, a 34-year-old lawyer. “We were out in huge numbers and showed that we will defend the two lives, no matter the cost.”

Some prominent female political leaders also came out against the measure, including vice-president Gabriela Michetti. But Macri’s health minister, Adolfo Rubinstein, testified in Congress in favour of legalisation and estimated that some 354,000 clandestine abortions are carried out every year in the country.

Complications as a result of those abortions are the single leading cause of maternal deaths in the country, according to Mariana Romero, a researcher at the Centre for the Study of State and Society, a nonprofit organisation.

While the measure failed in the Senate, it made some inroads. Among the senators who voted for it was Cristina Kirchner, who as president had opposed legalising abortion. “The ones who made me change my mind were the thousands and thousands of girls who took to the streets,” she said. – New York Times