Six deputies from Milei’s La Libertad Avanza coalition have presented a bill that would criminalize elective abortion in Argentina, overturning the landmark 2020 Congress decision to legalize the procedure.
Critics have argued that the bill is a political diversion strategy to draw attention away from the failure of Milei’s omnibus bill project. The president’s flagship reform package suffered a shocking defeat on Tuesday, when deputies voted to send the legislation back to congressional commissions, wiping out weeks of fraught negotiations.
It also comes just days before Milei is due to meet with Pope Francis in the Vatican. The Catholic church has long been a powerful opponent to abortion.
Even within Milei’s bloc, support for the project remains unclear after deputy Lilia Lemoine publicly denied signing the bill.
Abortion is currently legal on request in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy, and after that in cases where the pregnancy was a result of rape or when the pregnant person’s life or health is in danger.
The bill filed this week proposes repealing the 2020 abortion law. In its place, practicing an abortion would be punishable by one to four years in jail, rising to six years if the pregnant person dies because of the procedure.
Those who carry out their own abortions or allow someone else to perform the procedure on them could be sentenced to one to three years in jail, although the judge ruling on the case could decide not to punish.
The mere presentation of the draft legislation does not imply that it will be accepted for debate.
The bill would remove the right to abortion in cases of rape because this “has been systematically interpreted as a justification for the practice,” the bill’s authors wrote. They argue that allowing judges to decide not to prosecute would mean people who become pregnant as a result of rape can end their pregnancies, but the procedure would remain illegal.
Judges would have to consider the pregnant person’s behavior when deciding not to prosecute.
“We believe there is no reason, however dramatic it is, that justifies throwing away an innocent life,” the bill reads.
Abortion would remain legal only in cases of “imminent risk to the life of the mother […] as long as the risk cannot be avoided by other means.”
While Argentina’s current law avoids the word “mother” and refers to “women and people of other gender identities with the capacity to gestate,” the new bill refers only to “mothers” and “women.” Its authors also reject the phrase “voluntary interruption of a pregnancy” (IVE, by its Spanish initials), which they argue is a euphemism.
In the legal arguments accompanying the proposed law, the authors call the current legislation unconstitutional, arguing that life begins at conception.
The bill’s main signatory is La Libertad Avanza deputy Rocío Bonacci. The co-signatories are fellow LLA deputies Beltrán Benedit, María Fernanda Araujo, Lilia Lemoine, Manuel Quintar, and Oscar Zago.
However, as soon as the bill had been presented, deputy Lilia Lemoine told news website Corta that she had not signed the bill.
“They put my name on it because I said I would support it, but now was not the right time and they put me on there anyway,” she said. “It’s really damaging.”
Milei’s deputies present bill to overturn legalization of abortion
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08.02.2024
Six deputies from Milei’s La Libertad Avanza coalition have presented a bill that would criminalize elective abortion in Argentina, overturning the landmark 2020 Congress decision to legalize the procedure.
Critics have argued that the bill is a political diversion strategy to draw attention away from the failure of Milei’s omnibus bill project. The president’s flagship reform package suffered a shocking defeat on Tuesday, when deputies voted to send the legislation back to congressional commissions, wiping out weeks of fraught negotiations.
It also comes just days before Milei is due to meet with Pope Francis in the Vatican. The Catholic church has long been a powerful opponent to abortion.
Even within Milei’s bloc, support for the project remains unclear after deputy Lilia Lemoine publicly........
© Buenos Aires Herald
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