The Comment Factory

Seventeen-year-old N (as she is known for legal reasons) was a student in San Pedro, a town in the North of Argentina. One night last summer, while on her way home, she was brutally beaten and raped repeatedly for several hours. Due to the severity of her injuries she remained in hospital for a week.

Yet the horror didn’t stop there. Despite the nature of the sexual attack the hospital refused to administer her with the morning after pill (MAP). When she eventually returned home, N discovered that she was pregnant.

“We petitioned the hospital for an abortion,” explains Mariana Vargas, N’s lawyer. “By law they should have given her the MAP, and as they didn’t comply with this they had the obligation to grant her an abortion.”

Vargas’ efforts to push for an abortion through legal means failed. The case gained nation-wide media coverage and a campaign was launched to raise money for N to undergo a safe (though still illegal) abortion.

In the weeks that followed, N’s mother informed the press that her daughter had suffered a miscarriage.

In Argentina, like in much of the rest of Latin America, abortion is illegal and punishable by imprisonment. Nevertheless, around 500,000 illegal abortions are carried out in the country every year. These abortions lead to an estimated 400 deaths per year, while a further 80,000 women are hospitalized due to post-abortion complications.

Unsafe abortion is the number one cause of maternal mortality in Argentina and high profile cases, like that of N, are opening up the debate in a country that for many years refused to acknowledge it.

Cases like this one also illustrate the extent to which abortion is a class issue here, a country where 30 percent of the population live below the poverty line.

“It is clear that this is an issue that most affects poor, young women in society,” says Giselle Carino, Regional Program Officer for Safe Abortion from the International Planned Parenthood Foundation. “Women who have more economic resources have much better access to an illegal but safe abortion; often it is their family doctor who will arrange it.”

Middle and upper class circles know that an unwanted pregnancy can be taken care of safely and speedily, at a cost of around $1,500-$2,000. “Women who can’t afford to get an abortion this way use their own methods which put their lives at great risk,” explains Carino. “From taking large amounts of herbs, to using clothes hangers or sharp objects which they insert into their uterus.”

Yet Carino insists that it would be wrong to assume that women with the money to pay for a safe abortion don’t also suffer as a result of its criminalization.

“The reality is that it is still a clandestine service and by its very definition a clandestine service is never safe because the woman is denied all rights and it is unregulated,” Carino says.

With one unsafe abortion carried out for every baby born in Argentina, the restrictive laws are clearly not working; so why are they still implemented?

“The current situation in relation to abortion in this country has a lot to do with the strength of the Catholic Church here,” says Vargas. “They promote deeply conservative views about a woman’s role in society as mother.”

The Catholic Church remains a powerful force in Argentina, Roman Catholics make up 92 percent of the population, and the Church enjoys significant sway in government.

Yet opinion polls suggest that the publics view of abortion is changing. A recent study revealed that 62 percent of those interviewed were in favor of the decriminalization of abortion and 37 percent were in favor of the total legalisation of abortion.

The Church has reacted by attempting to rally the public behind their pro-life message. The archbishop of Buenos Aires, cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, recently called on Christians to vociferously oppose abortion, even when accused of being “antiquated, sanctimonious, zealots.”

Nevertheless, it appears that the debate has expanded in Argentina. “There is now more awareness of the problem,” says Carino. “It’s no longer a debate of the church versus feminist organizations, it is now a public debate. The criminalization of abortion violates the human rights of all women as it limits their capacity to make their own decisions about their bodies, lives and plans for the future.”