Source: The Guardian
BY Elizabeth Sulis Kim
Even as calls for women in Argentina to be given the legal right to abortion have grown louder on its cities’ streets, a change in the law had seemed unlikely – until now.
But a vote on abortion on Wednesday could transform Pope Francis’s homeland from a country where women can go to jail for having an unlawful termination to one of Latin America’s most progressive countries on reproductive rights.
The chamber of deputies will be voting on the abortion bill, which would legalise elective abortion in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy, although, if it passes, no date has been set for its consideration in the upper house.
The first Monday of June marked the last march, in a rainy Buenos Aires, before the crucial vote. Led by Ni Una Menos, (Not One Less), a movement that began in 2015 as a protest against femicide, women of all ages marched in signature green bandanas under a sea of umbrellas. Amid a cacophony of drums, their chants lamented the Catholic church, denounced “slut-shaming” and called for the end to violence against women. Among the placards, one read: “El machismo mata”, or “machismo kills.”
Categories: Argentina, Human Rights, South America, The Muslim Times
