Argentina: Can one country's change of abortion law alter a continent?
The Powerful women's rights movement In Brazil alone, an estimated one million women access clandestine abortions every year. The only places where abortions are currently legal in Latin America are Uruguay, Cuba, Guyana, and parts of Mexico. And now, of course, Argentina. Abortion is banned in Brazil unless the pregnancy is a result of rape, the mother's life is in danger, or if the fetus is anencephalic, a rare condition that prevents part of the brain and skull from developing.
Argentina's Congress voted to legalize abortion up to the 14th week of pregnancy, Renata (not her real name) felt excited. How cool," the 20-year-old from northern Brazil remembers thinking in late December. A student and supermarket worker, Renata saw it as the start of something new in a region where abortion is mostly illegal. But she thought little more of it until a week later when she found out she was pregnant herself. Then, she says, her world collapsed. Under no circumstances could I be pregnant," she told me, explaining that in the city where she lives, jobs are impossible to come by - all the more so because of the pandemic. And she knew she would have been furloughed on lower pay if she told her employer.
"Everything has to be right to bring a child into this world," she explains, adding that after having seen her mother bring up two children alone she never wanted to have to go through that herself. But few options were open to her. So Renata decided she would travel to Colombia where - although restrictions are similar to those in Brazil - interpretation of the law is broader and so it is easier to access legal abortions. media caption Activists celebrated the Senate legalization in Buenos Aires Shihad even borrowed money to pay for the flight, which was going to be her first trip abroad ever. But then, Colombia banned incoming flights from Brazil because of a new Covid-19 variant detected in the Amazon. "I started to cry," Renata recalls. "It was my last hope, I was inconsolable."
Now, through the help of a charity called Miles for the Lives of Women, whereby people donate air miles to help women access safe abortions abroad, Renata is traveling to Mexico City, where abortions during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy are legal.” It’s the best decision for me," she says, unwavering. Many pro-choice activists hope that the change in the law in Argentina will put pressure on other countries to follow suit. In Argentina, those who supported the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion wore a green bandana. It is a symbol that has since been taken up by many other activists in the region and which has come to represent the peaceful resistance by a growing women's rights movement which argues that society needs to change.
"Traditionally, Latin America doesn't operate in this way," the prominent feminist activist says.” It was a colonized region, looking much more to the global north. And now we're looking at each other. Even a country that understands itself as a continent, like Brazil, is using the green scarf to represent women's causes." "When the law passed in Argentina, people in Honduras started talking about whether it [the pressure to legalize abortion] would spread in the region, and that probably in Honduras, it [legalization of abortion] could happen too," says Álvaro Hernández of Ola Celeste (Blue Wave), an anti-abortion group that backed the change to the constitution."Here in Honduras, there are a lot of cultural issues. Honduras is a Christian country and abortion hasn't been a topic of debate here," he says. And while the church may be very influential in Honduras, groups of women still took to the streets to protest against the abortion ban.
In Argentina, many credited center-left President Alberto Fernández for helping to push through the legalization of abortion. But in neighboring Brazil, far-right President Jair Bolsonaro condemned the move and conservative groups remain strong." I don't think it's going to be that easy to legalize [abortion in Brazil]," says Colene Salomão, who has campaigned vociferously for the São Paulo chapter of 40 Days for Life, an international religious anti-abortion campaign.
In Chile, right-wing President Sebastian Piñata has also made it clear that he opposes a change in the law, even though in January - in the wake of Argentina's decision - Chile's Congress started debating decriminalizing abortion in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. For Debora Diniz, too, it provides further motivation. "In Brazil, we have some of the most active and vibrant black feminists in the region," she says. "It's a diverse feminism, and maybe something will come from it."
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