Amy Booth

Reports the jubilation of pro-choice demonstrators in Buenos Aires after the Senate (which had voted down legalization of abortion in 2018) passed a law allowing termination in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy for any reason.  Argentina became then third South American country (after Uruguay and Guyana) to decriminalize abortion, and there are likely to b repercussions across the region. The authors summarize the five years of mass campaigning by the women’s movement in Argentina that led to this result.

See also: ‘Green Wave, Blue Water: Abortion in Latin America’, Economist, 9 Jan. 2021, pp.41-2.

This article discusses the significance of and probable repercussions of the legalization of abortion in Argentina, in the context of the generally very restrictive position in many other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.  The article notes the possible positive repercussions in Peru and Mexico and that legalizing abortion may be raised in proposed constitutional change in Chile.  But the article also warns that the Argentinian law will mobilize forces strongly opposed to abortion.