As the Argentine senate rejects the legal abortion, How can we compare it to the case in Uruguay?
On August 9, the Argentine Senate decided to reject the Law of Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy
In a debate that lasted for 16 hours, the Senate of Argentina rejected yesterday the draft of the Law of Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy, which sought to decriminalize abortion until week 14 of gestation and not only in cases of rape and danger of the mother's health.
Leer en español: El Senado argentino rechaza el aborto legal ¿Cómo podemos comparar este caso con el de Uruguay?
Although the text had already been approved on June 14 this year by the Chamber of Deputies, it received 31 votes in favor in the Senate, 38 against and 2 abstentions, so it failed to pass the last phase.
For Amnesty International, the decision "represents the loss of a historic opportunity for the exercise of the human rights of women, girls and people with the ability to deliver." When completely rejected, the initiative can not be presented again for parliamentary treatment until next year.
The reactions among those who supported the yes oscillated between sadness and anger. According to the newspaper El Comercio, some threw stones and burned garbage, while the police tried to dissolve them with water and tear gas.
Lessons from Uruguay
After five years of being in force, the Law of Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy before week 12 (which failed in 2012 and came IGNORE INTO force in 2013), the results are positive for the Latin American country.
According to a report presented by the newspaper La Diaria, of Chile, Uruguay is the second country with the lowest maternal mortality in America, after Canada. In addition, according to Health Minister Jorge Basso, since the law was put IGNORE INTO practice, "there have been no significant changes" in the trend and Uruguayan clinics perform "a monthly average that has been between 810 and 820 (aborts)".
Let's talk about numbers
According to the Guttmacher Institute, a group of experts focused on reproductive rights, 97% of women of reproductive age live in countries with restrictive abortion laws.
According to the latest research published by this institute, "Abortion Worldwide 2017 Uneven Progress and Access", Latin America ranks first as the region with the highest abortion rate: 44 per thousand women.
In Argentina alone, according to the Minister of Health Adolfo Rubinstein, in 2016 there were 245 maternal deaths in the country, 43 of them due to abortions. However, it is speculated that in the country there are about 500,000 clandestine abortions per year. The report also warns that each year, 6.9 million women are treated for complications resulting from unsafe abortions.
LatinAmerican Post | Luisa Fernanda Báez
Copy Edited by Laura Viviana Guevara Muñoz
