After years of struggle, abortion is now legal in Argentina

A historical moment has finally arrived: on December 30th, 2020 the Argentine Senate approved abortion legalization. Argentina legalised abortion and became the fourth main Roman Catholic country in Latin America to allow it, along with Cuba, Uruguay, Guyana, and the state of Mexico City. For eighteen years not only women had been asking for legislation to be adopted in favour of the voluntary termination of pregnancy. And when they seemed to be close to an approval two years ago (the law was passed to the House), the negotiation on the legislation came to a standstill in the Senate under the presidency of the conservative Mauricio Macri. This was a disappointment that makes the recent victory even more exciting, especially for the many who spent the night waiting for the result of the vote in the Congress square.

 

My experience

I remember my first day in Buenos Aires, after a 15-hour flight. It took me only a week to fall in love with Argentina, Buenos Aires, its traditions, and its people. I really loved those people. After living in that country for a few months, I had already learned to love it and, now, I miss it as if it were my home. Knowing that, now, my friends and all Argentinian women are more protected gives me great happiness and relief. We still have a long way to go, but I hope this is only the beginning, that Argentina will be an example for the other Latin American countries, that suffering and clandestine procedures end once and for all. This is an important achievement, especially today when the protection of rights and their implementation is regressing in many areas. I could not be there in person as I wanted, but I was there with my heart and soul. Finally, it is the law. When I was living there, I found out something that I was not expecting: feminism is strong. In Buenos Aires, I joined some protests for women’s rights, and, in particular, I remember one night I spent with my Argentine friends in the Congress Square in Buenos Aires protesting for the legalization of abortion.

 

A historical moment for women’s rights

In the Congress Square in Buenos Aires, the cry of thousands of voices in unison announced that abortion had become legal in Argentina. At 4:20 in the morning, the Senate approved the law on the voluntary termination of pregnancy up to the fourteenth week of gestation. The green-handkerchief sector of the square burst with joy. There were tears and hugs, and the feminist chants and slogans immediately started again. “We did it, it’s the law!” It is a historic victory for Argentina: the conquest of the right to decide on one’s own body that comes after more than thirty years of a struggle shared among three generations. In fact, the reform of the Criminal Code dates back to 1921 and it allowed abortion when the life or health of the woman is in danger and in case of rape. But these legal exceptions have not been adequately applied to date. In 2012, a 15-year-old teenager, raped by her stepfather, was denied the possibility to access abortion.

The case was closed before getting to the Superior Court of Justice, which reaffirmed and clarified the conditions of access to legal abortion through a sentence known as FAL, thus showcasing the discretion with which the rule was interpreted. Despite this important legal precedent, abortion continued to be criminalised in Argentina, as it happened to Belén, a young woman from the province of Tucumán who was deprived of her liberty due to a miscarriage in 2014. It was an example of unsustainable injustice, which led the feminist movement to rise up with protests, mobilizations, and campaigns that finally led the case to end in an acquittal after two and a half years of imprisonment for Belén. Moreover, in 2015, the umpteenth femicide of a 14- year-old girl unleashed the large demonstrations that gave birth to the NiUnaMenos movement, which is now known all around the world. Since then, the Argentine green tide has never stopped, claiming more and more rights, setting more and more new objectives, and denouncing the unacceptable amount of abuses and violations of human rights that occur in the country daily.