ARGENTINE PRESIDENT FERNANDEZ SIGNS NEW ABORTION BILL INTO LAW

Fri 15 January 2021:

Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez signed the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy Act in Buenos Aires, legalising the practice of abortion in the country, on Friday. Fernandez attended a ceremony at the Museum of the Bicentennial of the Government House in which he signed the document that enacts the law. Ministers and dozens of guests were also present.

“Today is a day of happiness for all, because we are making a more egalitarian and just society and we did it together. For me, it is a day of happiness and something more because I kept my word. I campaigned saying that I was going to work for this law, and today we achieved it,” said Fernandez.

“Today for many women it is the culmination of a time of struggle. For many years, they fought for abortion to stop being a crime.”

Fernandez also thanked both legislators from his own party and the opposition.

On Dec. 30, Argentina’s Congress voted to legalize elective abortion in the first 14 weeks of gestation as the Senate backed the bill two years after rejecting a similar one.

Argentina becomes the largest nation in Latin America to permit legal abortions alongside Cuba, Uruguay, Guyana and parts of Mexico.

Following a 1921 law, abortion had only been permitted in cases of rape or when there was a risk to the woman’s life.

According to government data, since 1983, over 3,000 women have died due to clandestine practices, with more than 370,000 clandestine abortions taking place per year.