Argentina's lower chamber passes bill to legalize abortion

And it’s ON!,It passed by 4 votes and getting it through the senate would be very hard, but we’ll try again next year and the one after that, as many times as necessary.

If Ireland can do it, so can you!

I hope!, about a million people demonstrated for legalizatoin outside the chamber since yesterday until today 10:00 am, (my sister among them) they stayed there all night braving freezing (for us at least) temperatures. (the law was debated all night and approved this morning)
Until the last half hour of so we didnt know if it was going to pass, I think I have something in my eye…

When are the next Senate elections? If I was a sitting Senator I would listen to what my constituents were telling me regardless of how I might personally feel about the issue.

Next year, but the problem is that the provinces are a lot more conservative and the senate has 3 senators for each province.
So while Buenos Aires, La Pampa, Cordoba and Santa Fe have between them more than 60% of the population they have only 12 votes in a 60 seat senate.

What is the current status of abortion legality in Argentina? Total ban, or is there a medical exception?

There is, in theory, a medical exception, in practice is very hard to get an abortion even in those cases because some doctors fear being accused of violating the law and other refuse to do it on religious grounds.

Only hard to get a legal abortion; according to the media there are approximately 500,000 illegal abortions every year in Argentina, I’m guessing that swayed some of the votes in favour of legalisation.

Do you know why did the colour green come to be associated with the campaign?

Abortion in Uruguay has been legal on request during the first trimester since 2012; so that’s one option for women of means, at least in Buenos Aires.

Nitpick; the Republic of Ireland hasn’t actually legalized abortion, the constitution was merely altered to give Oireachtas the power to do so. Abortion in Northern Ireland is still restricted to when the mother’s life is in danger.

Yes, exactly, hundreds of thousands of illegal abortions are practiced every year, many in deplorable conditions leading to the death and maiming of many women.
Aand definitively that was one of the main points of the push for legalization, abortions are going to be done anyway, why not legalize them so they can be made in safer conditions?

Also the full push was for “Aborto seguro, legal y gratuito”, “Legal, Safe and free (as in beer)” if the law passes the senate abortions will be free in public hospitals.

I don’t really know why the color green was chosen (I have my green handkerchief but I don’t know why it’s green!) I’ll google around a bit and try to find out.

Yes and if you have the money to travel, stay and pay for it there.
That’s another of the reasons for this law, to try and fix the inherent inequality of well-to do women aborting in Uruguay, Europe or here in well-equipped clandestine clinics while poor women die of botched abortions or have to carry on with pregnancies they don’t want.

I googled around and green was just chosen because it was free (no other causes using it).
It was a good choice anyway.

Well 2 years later, we finally did it!
The senate finally passed the law (The lower chamber passed it again a month or so ago).
A great day in an otherwise horrible year.

Wow! Congrats and thanks for following-up on this thread.

I was going to bemoan the fact that abortion, like other forms of health care but also of particular interest to women, often seems to be some kind of an earmark for economic inequality. It’s like the rich want to be able to reaffirm their feelings of superiority by being able to access procedures and healthiness that the poor can’t afford – it becomes a proxy indicator of one’s wealth and therefore status.

What a sick world we live in!

–G!


The rich stay healthy
The sick stay poor

–Paul David Hewson/Bono (U2)
God, Part II
Rattle and Hum

We also passed another law guaranteeing follow up for the first 1000 days and some money for the mothers who need it, to help them when they are pregnant and the first years of the child’s life.
Peronists are often reviled outside Argentina, and sometimes with reason, but they deliver.
(Se also marriage equality, women’s suffrage, labor rights…)