Argentina legalized abortion. Here’s how it happened and what it means for Latin America.

Abortion rights advocates focused on public health consequences of prohibition and disproportionate impact on women in poverty

By Taylor Boas, Mariela Daby, Mason Moseley and Amy Erica Smith
Jan. 18, 2021

Early on Dec. 30, Argentina became only the second democratic country in Latin America to legalize abortion. The Senate’s 38-to-29 vote on a bill passed by the legislature’s lower house was celebrated by masses of green-clad activists in the streets of Buenos Aires. In recent years, these activists have been mobilizing in larger and larger numbers for reproductive rights.

Abortion legalization failed in 2018. What changed?
In 2018, a similar bill was passed by Argentina’s Chamber of Deputies but came up short in the Senate. By 2020, advocates for legalization had President Alberto Fernández on their side; Fernández had defeated antiabortion incumbent President Mauricio Macri in 2019.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/18/argentina-legalized-abortion-heres-how-it-happened-what-it-means-latin-america/

Amy Coney Barrett’s First Abortion Ruling Is No Surprise

The Supreme Court ruling on Tuesday puts abortion patients’ health at risk.

Jan 14, 2021
Rewire News Group Staff

The Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration Tuesday in a ruling that puts abortion patients’ health at risk—the first abortion-related ruling with Amy Coney Barrett on the bench.

The decision in FDA v. ACOG reinstates a federal policy that requires medication abortion patients to pick up their abortion medications in person. Providers had challenged the policy because of the pandemic and a federal court had blocked it. The ruling puts that policy back in place.

Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2021/01/14/amy-coney-barretts-first-abortion-ruling-is-no-surprise/

The Supreme Court Won’t Explain Why It Just Greenlit New Abortion Restrictions

The court issued its first abortion decision since Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed.

By LEAH LITMAN
JAN 14, 2021

On Tuesday evening, the Supreme Court released its first abortion decision since Senate Republicans confirmed Amy Coney Barrett as Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s successor. The court’s unexplained, unsigned order allows the government to restrict access to the abortion pill. It also provides a strong signal that the new court is willing to indulge restrictions on abortion, even though it did not bother to explain why. Some may be inclined to write off the court’s decision since the incoming Biden administration could change the specific regulation at issue in the case, which required women to pick up mifepristone in person from a medical facility. But the decision serves as a standing invitation to states to impose yet more draconian restrictions on abortion.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/the-supreme-court-abortion-pill-order.html

Long Before the Capitol Riot, Anti-Abortion Extremists Showed Us the Dangers of Inflammatory Propaganda

It’s no coincidence several “pro-life” activists were in DC last week.

BECCA ANDREWS, Mother Jones
Jan 14, 2021

A week after the violent insurrection at the Capitol, we’re learning more and more about the people who charged the building. And recent reporting from Vice, Jezebel, and others reveal there were quite a few anti-abortion extremists at the pro-Trump rally, if not in the Capitol afterward as well. You’re probably thinking, hmm, ok, that makes sense—and it does! But the overlap of these universes cannot simply be boiled down to the fact that Trump supporters are more likely to strongly oppose abortion.

The violence we saw at the Capitol—and the inflammatory rhetoric and disinformation that led up to it—in fact mirrors what’s been plaguing the debate around abortion for several years.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/01/anti-abortion-extremists-capitol-riot-trump-propaganda-abby-johnson/

USA – This week’s SCOTUS ruling sends a ‘chilling signal’ on the future of abortion rights

Abortions have been available by mail during coronavirus. Not anymore.

Caroline Kitchener
Jan. 13, 2021

Julie Amaon wanted to make the process as easy as possible. Her organization — Just the Pill — began facilitating abortions by mail in October. After they scheduled a call with a doctor, patients in Minnesota would typically receive their pill in the mail within 72 hours. Amaon, a family medicine doctor and medical director for Just the Pill, always followed up with a care package: Oreos, sanitary pads and a bag of peach mango herbal tea.

The entire operation screeched to a halt Tuesday night, when the Supreme Court lifted a national injunction that allowed women to access the abortion pill remotely during the coronavirus pandemic. Since July, patients had been able to request an abortion pill without ever setting foot in a clinic or a doctor’s office, an accommodation instituted to protect patients from the virus.

Continued: https://www.thelily.com/this-weeks-scotus-ruling-sends-a-chilling-signal-on-the-future-of-abortion-rights/

Argentina Legalized Abortion Until 14 Weeks—and We Have Feminist Organizers to Thank

The recent victory in Argentina demonstrates that women’s rights are never simply granted; they must be fought for.

1/11/2021
by CORA FERNÁNDEZ ANDERSON

In the early morning hours of Dec. 30—fifteen years after the launch of the Campaign for Safe, Free and Legal Abortion—the Argentine Congress passed a bill to legalize abortion until 14 weeks, a historic move in a region with some of the world’s most restrictive abortion laws.

After a long session that went overnight, closely followed by large crowds outside of the Congressional building, the Senate voted 38-29 to legalize abortion. The streets became a feast of green, tears and joy, hugs and chants overwhelmed the scene.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2021/01/11/argentina-legalized-abortion-until-14-weeks-the-national-campaign-for-safe-free-and-legal-abortion-is-the-hero-behind-it/

Argentina’s legalisation of abortion will provoke a backlash

The country’s decision will encourage campaigners for more liberal laws but may invigorate their opponents, too

Economist
Jan 9th 2021

Within days Argentina’s president, Alberto Fernández, is expected to sign a law making abortion legal. Argentine women will be able to terminate their pregnancies within the first 14 weeks for any reason. The measure is a big deal. With 45m people, Argentina is the fourth-most-populous country in Latin America, a predominantly Catholic region, and the native country of the current pope. It is now the largest of the few Latin American countries that allow abortion on demand (see map). Argentina’s new law will see the share of women in the region with such access rise from 3% to 10%.

Pro-abortion groups hail it as part of a marea verde (green wave), named for the verdant scarves worn by women’s-rights campaigners, not all of whom advocate greater access to abortion. Argentina’s decision has inspired discussion in Peru, says Susana Chávez, an obstetrician and congressional candidate for the centrist Purple Party. There is “an opening, and parties and politicians are starting to talk about it”, she says. Mexico’s left-wing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has tried to avoid the issue, seemed to grant the possibility of liberalisation after Argentina’s decision. Women should decide whether the law should be changed, he said.

Continued: https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2021/01/09/argentinas-legalisation-of-abortion-will-provoke-a-backlash

09.01.2021

Andrés Manuel López Obrador

Abortion Providers Watching Capitol Violence Say They’ve ‘Seen This Rage Before’

From fire bombings, shootings, and ceaseless harassment, anti-abortion violence has wreaked havoc on clinics for decades.

Jan 8, 2021
Caroline Reilly

Trump supporters laid siege to our nation’s capital on Wednesday, storming past
a flaccid and enabling law enforcement presence in an attempt to stage a coup.
As they were filling the halls of Congress—stealing lecterns and paintings, and
taking selfies at Nancy’s Pelosi’s desk—pundits lamented: This is not America;
this is not who we are. Some even marveled at the cooperation from law
enforcement, wondering how security could have been so lax.

Unfortunately, abortion providers are all too familiar with the sort of
violence that played out at the Capitol.

Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2021/01/08/abortion-providers-watching-capitol-violence-say-theyve-seen-this-rage-before/

The Most Important Step Biden Can Take to Secure Reproductive Rights

President-elect Joe Biden can commit to combatting disinformation campaigns that have targeted reproductive and sexual health, rights, and justice issues.

Jan 6, 2021
Galina Espinoza, Rewire

When President-elect Joe Biden assumes office on January 20, he will face immediate pressure from reproductive rights advocates to undo many of the harmful measures restricting access to vital health care.

From the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding for abortion, to 2019’s devastating Title X changes, which include a rule that clinics receiving federal money can’t refer patients for abortion care, the list of ruinous policies in need of review is long, and it impacts the lives of millions.

Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2021/01/06/the-most-important-step-biden-can-take-to-secure-reproductive-rights/

How Argentina broke the mould on abortion

Years of campaigning for women’s rights and against domestic violence have paid off and other countries in the region could now follow suit, Lucinda Elliott writes

Lucinda Elliott
Wednesday January 06 2021

Graça, a 24-year-old Brazilian medical student, is booked on a flight to Argentina this week to have an abortion. Nearly ten weeks pregnant, she has secured a procedure in Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital, more than 1,800 miles away from Minas Gerais state university, where she is studying for a degree.

For Graça, neither supporting a baby nor having a legal termination is a viable option in Brazil, where the draconian abortion law dates back to 1940. She is on a scholarship and to make some money for the journey she has been baking and selling cupcakes.

Continued: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-argentina-broke-the-mould-on-abortion-wr70khksj