Analysis: Historic Abortion Vote Underscores Growing Importance of Social Issues Regionwide
Category: Instability
Severity: 2 (Low)
Source: Drum Cussac
06/18/2018 (Argentina) - Following the Chamber of Deputies' historic vote on Thursday, 14 June, to approve the decriminalisation of abortion, latest reports indicated that there was a virtual tie on the measure in Senate, where a formal vote is scheduled later this year. The lower house successfully passed the measure after a marathon 22-hour debate by a narrow vote of 129-125. However, in the Senate, which is generally considered more socially conservative, latest projections have 28 against the decriminalisation bill, 26 for it, and 18 undecided. Of those undecided, it is not yet clear who will ultimately cast an actual vote and who will abstain. However, the high ratio of undecided senators essentially means that forces both for and against the bill remain tied, and an all-out effort to persuade the undecided one way or the other will likely ensure as the formal vote - expected by September - approaches.
Like much of Latin America, Argentina has had relatively strict anti-abortion laws, criminalising the practice except in cases of rape and where the mother's life is in danger. However, even in those limited circumstances, critics have long claimed that the mandatory judicial evaluation process to make the abortion legal is cumbersome, confusing and time-consuming in nature for affected women. Additionally, many medical practitioners still refuse to perform the procedure even in cases where it is theoretically legal due to generalised fears of prosecution. The current bill, if it succeeds, will make all abortions legal and free for pregnancies up to 14 weeks, likely via pharmacological intervention; beyond this point in time, abortions would still be illegal save for the two scenarios previously outlined. According to the Ministry of Health, between 450,000 and 500,000 women, representing 40 per cent of all annual pregnancies, opt for what are generally termed "clandestine" abortions in Argentina. An estimated 50,000 reportedly end up hospitalized, with dozens elater dying in public hospitals due to botched procedures or other complications; the exact number remains imprecise due to the pressure to not list "abortion" as a direct or indirect cause of death to not create a criminal case.
Despite the alarming statistics regarding clandestine abortions, Argentine society still retains significant strains of social conservatism, notably for the abortion issue. Although the country was the second in the Americas to legalise marriage equality and subsequently passed what many considered to be a gold standard gender identity law, even leftist administrations have proved either unwilling or even hostile to relaxing the country's anti-abortion legal framework. The Catholic Church, headed by Argentine-born Pope Francis, as well as evangelical denominations have also continued to implore governments and citizens alike to keep abortion illegal, with Francis himself this week drawing comparisons between abortions and Nazi-era crimes against humanity. However, the country's "#NiUnaMenos" movement which began a handful of years earlier to fight gender-based violence has gradually spurred a solid parallel movement to finally decriminalise the country's anti-abortion laws as a further way of achieving gender parity. Recent moves by Chile last year to ease its even more restrictive anti-abortion law, as well as Ireland, where voters in May repealed a constitutional amendment that effectively prohibited the relaxation of anti-abortion laws, undoubtedly also provided steam for the movement. Ultimately, however, it was the constant push by activists as well as the decision by President Mauricio Macri to encourage a congressional debate on the issue that provided the necessary momentum for the Thursday floor vote.
Politically, the abortion issue somewhat mirrors that of marriage equality in that it has split nearly all of the country's parties down the middle, as Argentine politics typically revolves around economic axes as opposed to social ones. Thus, Peronist and non-Peronist blocs (including Macri's centre-right Cambiemos coalition) essentially chose to allow members to vote their conscience much in the same way that the ultimately successful marriage equality bill was passed almost a decade earlier. The nearly day-long debate in the Chamber before the abortion vote was often contentious and acrimonious, and further cracks seemed to appear in Cambiemos after disagreements on economic policy had already threatened the coalition's unity. Although opinion polls in the Senate have in the past generally indicated a rather wide margin for "no", the bill's momentum since its passage in the lower house has seen many politicians recalibrate their positions, and the numbers have thus slightly improved for "yes". Macri, who has voiced his disapproval of abortion, has pledged to sign the bill should it pass the Senate as a kind of deference to Congress on the issue; former leftist President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, now a senator for Buenos Aires province, has switched her position from not supporting a relaxation of the law during her two mandates that lasted through 2015 to a "yes" for decriminalisation when the Senate vote occurs later this year.
Regardless of the ultimate outcome of the vote, the abortion debate in Argentina has perhaps further augured how social issues appear to be on the rise in Latin America, with marriage equality having been the defining issue in the most recent Costa Rican election in which a populist with links to the evangelical community forced the current president into a runoff. Similar social agitations have been seen in Brazil, where evangelicalism in politics has been most strikingly on the rise, as well as in Colombia; indeed, some one-fifth of Latin Americans are now estimated to identify as evangelical. However, movements of social liberalism also continue to run strong, as seen in the abortion decriminalisation movements in Argentina and Chile as well as positive trends on marriage equality which began earlier this decade in the region. Discourse from pro-liberalisation movements has often focused on the concepts of social justice and human rights, which is particularly poignant for fellow citizens who only decades earlier lived under military dictatorships. Specific to the abortion debate, many pro-decriminalisation lawmakers went a step further and emphasised that they were doing so almost exclusively on public health grounds given the clandestine abortion statistics and the realisation that abortions will continue irrespective of the ultimate vote outcome. However, should Argentina serve as a bellwether for the region as it did for marriage equality years earlier, movements to relax similarly strict anti-abortion laws may begin to crop up throughout Latin America, throwing another proverbial wrench into the region's already crisis-ridden politics as the strength of traditional political parties has waned in the face of corruption scandals, dissatisfaction with economic growth and a newly insurgent populism, this time from the political right. More concretely for Argentina, mass rallies both for and against the abortion bill should be expected up through the final Senate vote in September.
Copyright © 2024 Drum Cussac
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