Abortion Legalised in Argentina
On December 30, 2020, Argentina became the largest country in Latin America that legalized abortion. Fortunately, this is expected to influence other nations to take on these feminist steps and give women their freedom.
Why abortion should be legal?
Abortion is a sensitive and high opinionated topic. However, safe abortion is a women’s right. Since feminism is about equality and giving women freedom from sexist stereotypes and actions, women should be able to make decisions about their own bodies and should not feel embarrassed or unsafe while doing so. Deciding on becoming a parent is a very difficult and life-changing decision and one feeling unready to become a parent should be normalized. A woman can want an abortion because of their mental condition, physical condition, low-socioeconomic class, not feeling ready enough to be a parent, not thinking that they can be a decent parent, or not wanting to give their baby to an adoption center. Orphan children face many large challenges in their futures mostly because of the lack of love and care which causes them to be in harmful mental states.
According to data found in 2009, every year, 42 million women get an abortion because of unintended pregnancies and 20 million of them are unsafe which results in 68 000 women dying annually. It is safer for women to go to certified abortion clinics and get an abortion safely with everything under control and recorded. Abortion being illegal doesn't lower the number of women who get abortions, it just causes women to get their procedure done in dangerous clinics and end up with trauma, long-term health complications, and even death.
On December 30, 2020, Argentina which is known as a heavily catholic and conservative country legalized abortion after having a long, 12-hour debate. The tense and dramatic debate resulted in the bill being approved by the Senate with a surprising gap: 38-29. In 2018 the same debate ended in failure with 38-31. So, this was a large milestone in the feminist community of Latin America. The grassroots feminist movement that has been starting to be popular in previous years played a very large role in this success as they worked hard to make their voices heard. Many feminist movements and organizations fought together to have their big goal achieved. While waiting, pro-choice activists wore green handkerchiefs which now can be considered as a symbol of their movement. After hearing the results, the tense night turned into a celebration with music and dancing. Some were having emotional moments because of their personal experiences with this situation such as losing one of their loved ones because of unsafe, illegal abortions.
While there are also strongly opinionated people who strictly oppose abortion, it is not expected that they will be able to stop the highly motivated and cheerful pro-choice activists. Currently, a woman is able to end a pregnancy for any reason up to 14 weeks. When past that time, there can be exceptions made for rape and women’s health.
Looking at Latin America, a continent that still needs improvements on women's rights and equality, this is a very big success and another cause of the area's rapid improvement in feminism. Everyone is looking forward to all of the future plans to be achieved all around the world and most importantly Latin America!
References
https://www.npr.org/2020/12/30/951001451/argentina-legalizes-abortion-in-historic-senate-vote
https://secularhumanism.org/2016/07/cont-why-i-am-pro-abortion-not-just-pro-choice/