Argentina's "green wave": legal abortion is closer than ever

Lower House of Parliament has passed a law to legalise abortion, and it is expected to be discussed in the Upper House on December 29. Everywhere you go, you can see people carrying their green pañuelos (kerchiefs) around their necks, wrists and tied on their bags. These pañuelos have become a symbol of the fight for the decriminalisation of abortion; when understood as induced, abortion is considered a crime against a person, and it is punishable by imprisonment. President Alberto Fernández hopes to legalise the process by the end of the year.

Abortion in Argentina is currently allowed in cases of rape, or if the mother’s life is in danger. Already a regional pioneer regarding gay marriage, gender identity and LGBTQ+ rights, Argentina is likely to become one in only four countries in Latin America where women can access safe and legal abortions.

In 2018, a very similar law was discussed in Congress, and although it was passed by the Chamber of Deputies, it did not get the necessary number of votes in the Chamber of Senators and was eventually rejected. Now, the proposed law is accompanied by another one which would - if approved - guarantee medical care and support for women who decide to carry on with their pregnancies yet lack the economic resources necessary to do so. This provides the abortion law a much better chance of passing the Senate, as it encourages legislators who were on the fence about the project to at least consider voting in favour.

Some legal background

As stated by the United Nations Human Rights Council in a 2016 report, “unsafe abortion is the third leading cause of maternal death globally” and, in places where access to legal abortions is highly restricted, short and long term “physical and psychological consequences also arise due to unsafe abortions and when women are forced to carry pregnancies to term against their will”.

In Argentina, for example, people face significant difficulties in accessing abortion services due to administrative paperwork, refusal from healthcare workers to carry out the procedure, and/or overall official disinterest to address the issue. According to the same UN report, “the denial of safe abortions and subjecting women and girls to humiliating and judgmental attitudes in such contexts of extreme vulnerability and where timely health care is essential amount to torture or ill treatment”.

“Greens” vs “Blues”

The image of a “green wave” is currently being used as a metaphor for the incredible number of people who have been marching for days and nights on several occasions, demanding abortion to be legalised.

Vilma Ibarra, Legal and Technical Secretary of the Nation, has said that “the Executive has taken a decision to make the enormous problem that we have with clandestine abortions visible”. "The policy of criminalisation of abortion has failed,” she added, and also emphasized that the goal is not to “promote abortion” but to “reduce it”.

In response to the popular use of the green pañuelos, which quickly became a national pro-choice symbol, those who oppose the law have begun to wear light blue pañuelos. Activism on both sides is stepping up, and in many cases is beginning to get way more radical than expected.

For the anti-reform groups, mainly dominated by Argentina’s powerful religious groups, the law is not only unacceptable on moral grounds, but it is badly timed. Many have argued – with coherent reasons – that president Fernández is just pushing this law through Congress because he needs a good win to show his electorate; since next year there are legislative elections in the country and his administration has left many expectations unfulfilled, Fernández could seriously benefit from this law being passed. Even more people have argued that, given Covid-19, it is just a waste of time to be discussing abortion rights when Congress could be discussing other issues related to the pandemic. Moreover, many religious leaders have felt that discussing such law in a date so close to Christmas is severely disrespectful.

Those who oppose the law have exposed a plethora of arguments: that the legalisation of abortion will promote the procedure because it will be legal and accessible in the healthcare system, that the number of abortions will increase enormously, and many religious arguments or personal beliefs of the protesters have also been heard.

The thing is, how can we know if the number of abortions performed in a period of time decreases or increases if we do not have national statistics focused on this practice? And how are we supposed to have accurate statistics if women who decide to terminate their pregnancies are forced to do so unsafely and in hiding, and risking imprisonment?

Vilma Ibarra has stated that an estimated of 370.000 to 520.000 clandestine abortions are carried out in Argentina every year. The Ministry of Health estimates that there are around 39.000 hospitalisations every year due to complications in clandestine practices - between 1.100 to 1.200 daily hospital admissions, as conjectured by Health Minister Ginés González García.

However, it is clear that these figures are not even close to being accurate. With abortion being still illegal and punished, it is impossible for any institution to collect and analyse any reliable information.

Organisations like Amnesty International have been pushing for this law to be passed for years. Recently, they have handed over to the Senate a text with more than 250.000 signatures that they gathered from all around the world (from Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Korea, Czech Republic, Sweden, Switzerland and Taiwan) to support the women's movement in Argentina that has been demanding, for years, to legalize the voluntary interruption of pregnancy. Despite Amnesty International’s insistence, results are still unpredictable given the conservative nature of the Chamber of Senators.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="es" dir="ltr">💚 Amnistía Internacional entregó al <a href="https://twitter.com/SenadoArgentina?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SenadoArgentina</a> 250 mil firmas reunidas en todo el mundo para pedir <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AbortoLegal2020?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AbortoLegal2020</a> en Argentina.<br><br>¡Es impactante la solidaridad internacional con el movimiento de mujeres en el país!<a href="https://t.co/sdDAptr3Q4">https://t.co/sdDAptr3Q4</a> <a href="https://t.co/zF1kw8u97h">pic.twitter.com/zF1kw8u97h</a></p>— Amnistía Internacional Argentina (@amnistiaar) <a href="https://twitter.com/amnistiaar... 17, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

You can read more about Amnesty International’s activities in Argentina here, and find more information about the Argentine National Campaign for the Right of Legal, Safe and Free Abortion here.

Featured image: "2018_08_08 Aborto legal Argentina_AntonioLitov(04)" by Fotomovimiento is licensed with CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/