ARGENTINA: The Supreme Court made an urgent decision after a civil court judge's abortion ruling sparked outrage and protests in Buenos Aires

Record ID: 447128

  • Title: ARGENTINA: The Supreme Court made an urgent decision after a civil court judge's abortion ruling sparked outrage and protests in Buenos Aires
  • Date: 13th October 2012
  • Summary: BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA (FILE - 2011) (REUTERS) MAYOR OF BUENOS AIRES, MAURICIO MACRI, THANKING VOTERS AFTER BEING RE-ELECTED
  • Embargoed: 28th October 2012 12:00
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  • Location: Argentina
  • Country: Argentina
  • Reuters ID: LVA9ET068EURCOR6RLXDAKBGV57I
  • Story Text: Rape victims have a right to abortion under Argentine law, but, this week, the Supreme Court intervened to ensure that a woman who says she was kidnapped, forced into prostitution and raped in a prostitution ring could end her pregnancy.
    Abortion is banned in much of Latin America, home to about half the world's Roman Catholics. Argentina is among the countries that allow abortions in cases of rape or when a woman's health is in danger.
    The recent controversy began when Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri announced that the city's first legal abortion under a new regulation governing the procedure in rape cases would be carried out on Tuesday.
    Anti-abortion activists identified the woman and protested outside her home last week and then again at the hospital where she was to have the abortion last Tuesday (October 9).
    "This woman was the victim of human trafficking, she has been raped and she doesn't want to continue with her pregnancy which is now in the ninth week of gestation. She had to endure a pro-family protest at her home and her family didn't know the whole story of what had happened to her, so she has unnecessarily had to relive humiliations of all kinds," said the woman's lawyer, Pablo Vicente.
    The abortion was eventually blocked by civil court judge Myriam Rustan de Estrada after an appeal was made by the conservative Catholic organization, Pro Familia.
    "The rationale is that the mother doesn't have the right to kill her child, even when she's been the victim of rape. The right to life of an innocent human being is absolute and allows no exceptions whatsoever. Death of an innocent human being is never justifiable," said Pro Familia's lawyer, Pedro Andereggen.
    In March, the Supreme Court ruled that abortion was legal for all rape victims and said a sworn affidavit by the women or their legal representatives would be sufficient to show the pregnancy resulted from rape.
    In an urgent ruling on Thursday, the Supreme Court overturned the lower court's decision and said the abortion could proceed.
    The woman, whose name has not been made public, could terminate her pregnancy as early as Friday.
    The case divided waters and sparked a slew of lawsuits in Buenos Aires, one of Latin America's most socially liberal cities where the mayor and opposition lawmakers are fighting over what limits if any should be placed on the procedure.
    In Argentina, roughly 500,000 abortions and miscarriages take place each year, FEIM estimates.
    Abortion is more accessible to wealthier Argentine women who get abortions in private clinics under the pretence of having their appendix removed.
    "Poor women go to the hospital, they can't get an abortion there and so they do it in an unsafe way and either end up very sick or dead. This is the great hypocrisy and great social injustice of abortion," said Mabel Bianco, president of the Foundation for Women's Study and Research (FEIM).
    In Latin America, 95 percent of abortions are unsafe, according to a study co-sponsored by the World Health Organization.
    Debate on legalizing abortion has made little headway in Argentina due in part to President Cristina Fernandez's opposition.
    Catholic leaders also condemn abortion under any circumstances and many people share their beliefs.
    Maria Elena Leuzzi is a Catholic woman who founded a non-profit group called Help to Rape Victims after her daughter was savagely raped on her way home from university in 2001. Her daughter did not get pregnant, but Leuzzi reflected on what might have happened if she had.
    "Today I can say I'm not openly in favour of abortion, but maybe if you had asked me in 2001, after what happened to my daughter, I wouldn't have wanted her to have to carry out the pregnancy in those conditions. You understand? You have to experience the pain first-hand before you can have an opinion on the subject. Today I look back at what happened 11 years later and I see it another way. I'm not going to be a hypocrite, I may have wanted my daughter to abort. Because what was I going to do with my daughter raped, traumatized, unhinged, with several suicide attempts, not knowing where that baby came from or what it could bring to the world genetically. I would have also said I wanted to abort. It's difficult," said Leuzzi.
    The abortion debate is a hot topic in the region, where last month Uruguay's lower house of Congress voted to legalise abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
    If passed by the senate, Uruguay will become one of the few countries in South America where abortion is unrestricted in the first trimester.
    In Latin America, only Cuba, Guyana and French Guiana currently permit abortion in the case of normal pregnancies.
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