The Fight for the Right to Abortion Spreads in Latin America Despite Politicians

By Fabiana Frayssinet

BUENOS AIRES, Aug 23 2018 (IPS) - The Argentine Senate’s rejection of a bill to legalise abortion did not stop a Latin American movement, which is on the streets and is expanding in an increasingly coordinated manner among women’s organisations in the region with the most restrictive laws and policies against pregnant women’s right to choose.

Approved in Argentina by the Chamber of Deputies and later rejected by a vote of 38 to 31 on Aug. 9, the bill to legalise abortion in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy and the historic social mobilisation on the streets offered hope for other countries in the region.

The Guttmacher Institute estimates that between 2010 and 2014, some 6.5 million abortions were practiced annually in Latin America and the Caribbean, up from 4.4 million between 1990 and 1994.

In the same period, the region had the highest rate of unintended pregnancies in the world: some 14 million, 46 percent of which end in abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which advocates for women’s reproductive rights, in line with World Health Organisation (WHO) principles.

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http://www.ipsnews.net/2018/08/fight-right-abortion-spreads-latin-america-despite-politicians/