‘The stigma has returned’: abortion access in turmoil in Javier Milei’s Argentina

Health workers fear the return of unsafe abortions as recent statements lead to a spike in doctors refusing to provide care

Harriet Barber in Buenos Aires, The Guardian
Mon 18 Mar 2024

Javier Milei’s anti-abortion rhetoric has prompted growing numbers of doctors in Argentina to refuse to carry out terminations, according to medical professionals across the country.

Since taking office in December, the self-described libertarian has used speeches to both global leaders and schoolchildren to condemn abortion as a “tragedy” and “aggravated murder”.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/mar/18/argentina-abortion-javier-milei


Jailed Protester Says Cuba Tried to Pressure Her to Have Abortion

By Graham Keeley
March 13, 2024

MADRID — A woman serving an eight-year prison sentence related to protests in Cuba says that prison authorities tried to force her to have an abortion.

Lisdany Rodriguez Isaac had always wanted a baby, so when the 25-year-old discovered she was pregnant after a conjugal visit from her partner, Luis Ernesto Jimenez, she was determined to have the baby.

Continued: https://www.voanews.com/a/jailed-protester-says-cuba-tried-to-pressure-her-to-have-abortion/7526323.html


Misogyny in discussions about legal abortion in Brazil

In Rio de Janeiro, a bill guaranteeing humane treatment of women seeking an abortion procedure was defeated

Luciana Boiteux, Translated by: Ana Paula Rocha
13 March 2024

We welcomed March with France's parliament approving the right to abortion in the country's constitution: 780 votes in favor and 72 against. A few days earlier, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, a bill aimed at guaranteeing the humane treatment of women seeking legal abortion – that is, what is already provided for in Brazil’s Penal Code – was defeated: 32 votes against and only eight in favor.

The bill, proposed by Marielle Franco, had been awaiting a vote since 2017, and aimed to municipalize a program that already existed as a technical standard of the Ministry of Health.

Continued: https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2024/03/13/misogyny-in-discussions-about-legal-abortion-in-brazil


Argentina’s Milei tells school kids abortion is ‘murder’

Buenos Aires (AFP) – President Javier Milei said he considers abortion, which is legal in Argentina, to be "murder", in a speech to high school students on Wednesday.

March 6, 2024

The 53-year-old libertarian, who is known to be anti-abortion but has not publicly spoken about the issue at length since taking office, was addressing young people at a Catholic school in Buenos Aires where he had studied.

"I warn you that to me abortion is murder ... and I can prove it to you from a mathematical, philosophical and liberal perspective," he said in a speech two days before International Women's Day.

ontinued: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240306-argentina-s-milei-tells-school-kids-abortion-is-murder


U.S. abortion rights setbacks spark fears in Latin America

Concerns in Latin America that abortion rights could face setbacks similar to those in the U.S. are adding urgency to the protests planned for International Women's Day this Friday, Marina writes.

March 5, 2024
Marina E. Franco

Why it matters: Regions of Latin America already are some of the most dangerous in the world for people who wish or need to terminate a pregnancy.

Threat level: Abortion bans can jeopardize the lives of women in trauma situations where continuing the pregnancy puts a woman's life at risk. Last month, Adilka Féliz, a senator's legal aide in the Dominican Republic — where there is a full ban on abortion— died from complications after an emergency premature birth procedure. She had an unviable pregnancy but was denied an abortion, her mother says.

Continued: https://www.axios.com/2024/03/05/international-womens-day-abortion-terminate-pregnancy


By bus, car and plane, women journey across Latin America for abortions

By Marina Dias and Terrence McCoy
February 23, 2024

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — She’d taken an overnight bus from the countryside, then a train across the urban sprawl of São Paulo, and now she was staring out the plane window, head full of worry. There was a pink rosary in her pocket. But she didn’t see the point of praying. She feared she was a sinner, a criminal, and this trip, her first time out of Brazil, would be a secret she’d carry for the rest of her life.

Cristina was 35 years old. She was 11 weeks pregnant. She came from a conservative Christian family in a conservative Christian nation where abortion was largely illegal, so she’d decided to travel to a country where it was not and bring an end to the pregnancy she didn’t want.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/23/brazil-latin-america-abortion-restrictions/


Cuban police want to force a political prisoner to have an abortion

Is abortion a choice or a political issue in Cuba? The current Cuban Penal Code assumes it as a crime when it is carried out without the consent of the mother

CARLA GLORIA COLOMÉ
FEB 20, 2024

Lisdany Rodríguez is not going to have an abortion. It is the decision she made from her cell at the Guajamal women’s prison, and that her husband supports from his detention at the El Yabú men’s prison. If everything goes well, and the Cuban political police do not make Lisdany abort the fetus, in nine months a baby will be born who will not live with its parents. They will be serving their sentences for demonstrating against the government.

When the police took Lisdany into custody after the protests on July 11, 2021, her partner, Luis Ernesto Jiménez, had been in prison for a few months for running a black market business. A few days after their last conjugal visit, Lisdany felt a little discomfort in her body and stopped having her period. The first pregnancy test was positive. An ultrasound test confirmed that she was seven weeks and five days pregnant.

Continued: https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-02-20/cuban-police-want-to-force-a-political-prisoner-to-have-an-abortion.html


Under Milei, Far-Right Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Recriminalize Abortion in Argentina

One leftist lawmaker said that "we see deputies from La Libertad Avanza desperate to once again use the patriarchal reaction as a unifying element" to distract from the nation's economic woes.

BRETT WILKINS
Feb 08, 2024

Members of Argentinian President Javier Milei's far-right ruling coalition this week introduced a bill to recriminalize abortion, a proposal subsequently disavowed by the libertarian leader's office—for now.

Five deputies from Milei's La Libertad Avanza (Freedom Advances) coalition—with 27-year-old Santa Fe lawmaker Rocío Bonacci spearheading the effort—are sponsoring the bill to overturn Law 27610, which Argentina's National Congress approved in December 2020 at the culmination of a decades-long fight by reproductive rights advocates.

Continued: https://www.commondreams.org/news/far-right-argentine-lawmakers-introduce-bill-to-recriminalize-abortion


Chile voters reject conservative proposal to replace dictatorship-era constitution

Latest attempt at new charter drew controversy over social rights, abortion articles

The Associated Press
Dec 17, 2023

Chilean voters rejected on Sunday a proposed conservative constitution to replace the country's dictatorship-era charter. With 96 per cent of votes counted late Sunday, about 55.8 per cent had voted No to the new charter, with about 44.2 per cent in favour.

… One of the most controversial articles in the proposed new draft said that "the law protects the life of the unborn," with a slight change in wording from the current document that some have warned could make abortion fully illegal in the South American country. Chilean law currently allows the interruption of pregnancies for three reasons: rape, an unviable fetus and risk to the life of the mother.

Continued: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/chile-vote-constitution-1.7062247?cmp=rss


Abortion: Pro-choice Forces in Brazil Are Being Threatened by Christian Radicals and the Ultra-right

BY ANDREA DIP
DECEMBER 10, 2023

Brazil’s Supreme Court has postponed a debate on decriminalizing early-term abortion, leading feminists and rights advocates to warn that the justices will be responsible for the deaths of more women and girls in the country.

Abortion in the country is punishable by up to three years in prison, and is allowed on only three grounds: rape, risk to the life of the pregnant person, and – following a 2012 Supreme Court decision – when the fetus suffers anencephaly, a fatal birth defect.

Continued: https://www.brazzil.com/abortion-pro-choice-forces-in-brazil-are-being-threatened-by-christian-radicals-and-the-ultra-right/