FactualAt the end of a twenty-hour debate, the government’s bill, which legalizes abortion up to 14 weeks of pregnancy, was approved by 131 votes to 117. The text must now be examined in the Senate.
The result of the vote, which fell shortly after 7 a.m. in Buenos Aires, was greeted with shouts of joy on one side of Congress Square, and tears on the other. Under overwhelming heat, and despite the pandemic, thousands of Argentines accompanied, from Thursday 10 to Friday 11 December, the examination of the project to legalize the voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion) in the Chamber of Deputies. Approved by 131 votes against 117, the text, carried by the government and the Peronist president Alberto Fernandez, must now pass to the Senate.
The debates, which lasted more than twenty hours despite a speaking time limited to five minutes per speaker, did not overcome the patience of feminist activists, nor that of anti-abortion. The two camps were divided, in front of the Congress, by high impassable barriers, a fracture like that caused by the subject of abortion within Argentinian society.
Side ” green “, the color symbol of the right to abortion, the attendance was much greater. Already cheerful in the late afternoon, the atmosphere on this side of the square took on the air of an open-air festival in the evening, with cumbia songs and Argentinian rock classics sometimes stifling the interventions of the deputies, broadcast live on large screens.
“A taboo has fallen”
“I am hopeful that this time, legalization will be adopted”, smiles behind his logo mask “Vivas y Libres” (“We want each other alive and free”, a slogan of the feminist movement) Carla Gomez Segovia, 35 years old. This administrative employee was already present in Congress Square in 2018, when the deputies adopted a proposal to legalize abortion, rejected two months later by the senators. She believes that “Argentinian society is ready today. A taboo fell after the 2018 debate, many people changed their minds and are more open ”.
Opponents of abortion, however, continue to be in the majority in Argentina, according to an opinion poll carried out by the National Center for Scientific and Technical Research, which indicates that only 27.3% of Argentines are for the right to abortion. without conditions; 52% of respondents say they are in favor only in the event of rape or if the pregnancy presents a danger to the health of the pregnant woman, exceptions recognized by law since 1921.
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