Abortion Legalized in Argentina

On Dec. 30, 2020, the Senate of Argentina voted 38-29 to legalize elective abortion up to 14 weeks gestation. This change in law makes Argentina the largest Latin American nation to have legalized elective abortion.

As recently as 2018, a majority in the upper chamber stopped the passage of a virtually identical bill, leading to pro-life celebrations and fireworks outside the National Congress of Argentina. On Dec. 29, 2020, pro-life Argentinians gathered again in Buenos Aires to demonstrate peaceful, prayerful opposition to the most recent bill, wearing the Argentinian color of the pro-life movement: light blue.

The people of Argentina, by a vast majority, did not wish for this bill to be passed. Sixty percent of Argentinians were against the abortion bill, with only 27 percent being in favor of it. 

The bill was pushed by new Argentinian President Alberto Fernández, who has been a critic of Argentina’s traditional laws restricting abortions. Since his election in 2019, the president has worked actively to sway undecided members of Congress to back the pro-abortion legislation. 

Opponents of the bill within the Argentinian government expressed their dismay at the law. 

“Isn’t it incoherent that you can’t buy alcohol or cigarettes but you can decide, without permission from your parents, to get an abortion?” Sen. María Belén Tapia said. 

Similar concerns came from the populace of Argentina. Roxana Luna, a homemaker, said: “I’m here because I don’t believe in this law. You can’t make a decision to sacrifice innocents.”

Fernando Cecin, a pro-life doctor, spoke out as well, saying, “No one can decide who lives and who dies. Our mission as doctors is to save lives. Death is a failure of medicine, of science.”

Advocates for the legislation expressed their support for the bill’s increased options. 

“It’s a decision only she can take. You have to want motherhood, or it can’t be,” school teacher Sofia Cernicchiaro said.

The Catholic Church, which still plays a significant role in the cultural setting of Argentina, has condemned abortion and infanticide since its beginnings, and continues to do so, especially when technology clearly showcases the humanity of the unborn starting from the moment of conception and with abortion largely accepted in many nations (CCC 2270-2271). Pope Francis, an Argentinian, was a fierce critic of this abortion legislation.

“The Son of God was born an outcast, in order to tell us that every outcast is a child of God. He came into the world as each child comes into the world, weak and vulnerable, so that we can learn to accept our weaknesses with tender love,” Pope Francis tweeted in the leadup to the bill’s debate in the Argentinian Congress.

The Bishops Conference of Argentina spoke out against the law as well, declaring that they “will continue working with firmness and passion in the care and service of life… This law which has been passed will further deepen divisions in our country. We deeply regret the remoteness of our leaders from the feelings of the people, which have been expressed in various ways, in favor of life, throughout our country.”

On the Feast of the Holy Innocents, taking place just two days before the bill’s passage on Dec. 28, 2020, the Argentinian bishops called for a day of prayer and fasting. This feast, which has been long connected to the pro-life movement, commemorates the slaughter of the children of Bethlehem by King Herod in an attempt to destroy the infant Jesus.

In other areas of South America following the legislation’s passage, the House of Representatives of Paraguay held a minute of silence for all the babies who will die as a result of the bill and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro expressed that he would never allow elective legalized abortion in his country during his tenure. 

“I deeply regret the lives of Argentine children, now subject to being cut out from their mothers’ wombs with the consent of the State,” President Bolsonaro tweeted on Dec. 30, 2020.

Featured image courtesy Gobierno de Chile via Wikimedia.