Argentina on the brink of a historic vote to legalize abortion | Argentina

Argentina is about to go down in history as the first major country in Latin America to legalize abortion.

The 72-member Senate is due to meet on Tuesday to debate the Cannes bill Approved by the House of Representatives Earlier this month, pro-choice activists were delighted.

The pro-choice and anti-abortion activists will gather in the square near the Congress building in Buenos Aires on Tuesday afternoon and will stay there until the early hours of Wednesday when a vote is expected.

Expectations Argentine media reports that the “green” camp pushing for change has a slight advantage over its “glaucoma” opponents: 33 senators are said to be planning to support the legislation while 32 will vote against it. Five senators are officially reluctant.

Mariela Bielski, Executive Director of Amnesty International in Argentina, said she was confident the “voluntary termination of pregnancy” bill would be approved, sending a loud message to a region with some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the world. “The numbers look very good,” she said.

Bielski said she was overjoyed and excited about what would be the culmination of a decades-long struggle by women’s rights activists.

“The day after tomorrow, this country will be a much better place than before,” she said. “This country will be better for my daughter and the younger generation, so I’m really happy this will happen.”

Claudia PinheiroA writer and pro-choice activist, he said, “This will be an unforgettable and unforgettable moment, something we have been waiting for at the end of a very difficult year for everyone.

I just hope the Senate realizes that there is no turning back now. The women’s movement will no longer allow them to decide about our bodies or our health or continue to compel us to resort to clandestine abortions.

“We still have to put up with their foolish arguments that we need to have children to live in the nation, as if we were just reproductive machines, nothing more than a womb. This will change tomorrow. I have no doubt about that.”

It was the previous attempt to legalize abortion The Argentine Senate rejected it in August 2018Many blamed President Mauricio Macri for failing to support change.

This time, however, in the country Left wing leader, Alberto Fernandez, And his deputy, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, defended the legislation and were reportedly struggling to persuade senators to support the bill.

Political analyst Andres Malamoud said that two main things have changed since the 2018 elections. “One of them is that the government now has a majority in the Senate,” he said. And the second most important thing is that the current Argentine President Alberto Fernandez is behind the bill, because legal abortion was an electoral promise. “

While activists are optimistic, Malamud said it would be impossible to anticipate the outcome until the last minute.

Although the government garners a majority of the vote, some senators will likely vote against the bill. The outcome will then depend on the pro-abortion minority within the opposition bloc, who delay announcing how they vote merely to deny the government political success in passing abortion for as long as possible.