More than 30,000 women gathered in the coastal city of Mar del Plata, Argentina, October 8-10 for the 20th National Women’s Conference, reported the Argentine daily Clarín. At the center of the conference was the fight to legalize abortion in Argentina. Last year’s conference in Mendoza drew 20,000, and the year before about 10,000.
Legal access to abortion remains severely restricted throughout most of Latin America and the Caribbean. Only in Cuba, Guyana, and Puerto Rico is abortion decriminalized. In Argentina, abortion is legal only in the case of rape—and then only if the woman is deemed to be mentally disabled—or if a woman’s life is in danger.
Nonetheless, an estimated 4 million women have abortions in Latin America annually—most performed under clandestine and often dangerous conditions. Some 800,000 of these result in complications that require medical treatment. In Argentina about four out of 10 pregnancies are terminated by abortion. Ten years ago, Argentina was the only country in the region that still provided no public support for access to contraception. This has only just begun to change. About 500 women die from botched abortions every year in Argentina, the largest single cause of maternal deaths in the country.
Among the 46 workshops held during the conference were ones on “Women and Work,” “Women and the Family,” “Women and Farmwork,” “Women and the Unions,” “Women and Art,” and “Strategy in the fight for free, safe and legal abortion.”
Rightists reportedly tried to disrupt the latter meeting. Women faced similar confrontations in the last conference in Mendoza.
Among those in attendance was a delegation of members of the State Employees Union, which organizes nurses and other staff at the Garrahan Hospital in Buenos Aires. They have been holding one- and two-day strikes since August demanding a wage increase.
On October 10, the last day of the conference, thousands of women marched through the streets of Mar del Plata with the lead banner reading, “Not one more death due to illegal abortion.”
Conference delegates resolved to continue the national campaign under the slogan, “Sexual education so we can make a choice. Birth control so we don’t have to abort. Abortion legalized so we won’t die.” The campaign began May 28 with participants gathering signatures across the country in favor of decriminalizing abortion. Over 70 organizations, including women’s groups and some unions have joined in the effort, reported Página/12.
The conference resolved to set November 25 as a day of mobilization to demand a woman’s right to choose abortion. A march to the Argentine National Congress in Buenos Aires will be held to present the petitions with this demand.
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