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“Abortion must be legal”

Abortion is one of the most controversial issues that top the list of those called "taboo subjects". However, it is necessary to talk about it since it is a topic whose legalization is currently being dealt with in the country. And the result of that discussion affects all Argentine citizens. In my opinion, legal abortion is necessary and imminent, and that is why I will present the arguments that legitimize and support my perspective.

In the first place, it is cruel that a woman who suffered the psychic harm implied by an abortion be, also, penalized by the State. Making abortion illegal does not deter women from practicing one, but only makes them more likely to die because of it. The woman who performs an abortion does not deserve to be punished, but accompanied. We cannot allow jail to be the destiny of a woman who decides to interrupt a pregnancy. The selectivity with which criminal law operates, the gender bias that sustains the criminalization of abortion in our society, as well as the symbolic violence that composes the message of mandatory motherhood under the threat of jail, constitutes a debt that the democracy maintains with Argentine women. The penalty only generates that abortions are performed clandestinely and the risks of mortality for women increase.

What is more, making the decision to abort is, in itself, extremely painful, but do it in a situation of illegality generates much more fear, pain and risk. In Argentina, women abort. That is a fact, even if people like it or not, we can agree or not. It is necessary to have it clear that women who want to have an abortion are going to do it being it legal or illegal. It is fought so that no women should abort when she does not want to do it and if she wants to do it, she has the possibility to practice it in the right conditions. Legalizing it is to avoid deaths, and that is the only thing that changed. People must face the central problem that there are many women who are in terrible situations that, due to unwanted pregnancies, end up in clandestine abortions in infamous conditions. The one that has the money to do it does it in a clandestine way with certain health conditions; the one that does not have that possibility, in the face of desperation, end up doing it in any place with the risks that this implies. We fight in the end, defending women's lives.

People must know that the state failed when it established the punishability of abortion and what it did was condemn women to not be able to have a chosen motherhood. The State must act before a social need with responsibility and without morality. It is a right of women to decide over their own body, and the moment in which they want to procreate or not. Abortion must be decriminalized, not only because of the right of women to personal freedom to plan what type of family they want, but because we must include within the health system the responsible practice of procedures; and it is a state duty to accompany it with an education campaign on contraceptive methods, sexuality and available resources. Abortion is a public health issue that every year causes the death of women as a consequence of clandestine practices of interruptions of pregnancy. It is thus that outlawing abortion is a social lack of protection.

Finally, is demonstrated that legalization decreases the number of abortions. Every day women die as a result of precarious clandestine abortions. It is proven that in countries where abortion is legal, the number of abortions that are made is not greater than that of countries where it is illegal, that is, they do not increase because they are legal. The big difference is that in these countries, maternal mortality has been drastically reduced. Mariana Romero, Coordinator of the Observatory of Sexual and Reproductive Health of Argentina, relied on statistics to ask for legalization: "In countries where legislation is more flexible, the rate of abortions is lower, while with restrictive laws goes up the rate of unsafe abortions and the practice rate; and legalization also reduces the number of deaths." Countries like Uruguay, Mexico, France, Italy and Spain are clear examples of this. An analysis of specific cases, published by the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics, concludes that "in countries where the interruption of pregnancy was decriminalized, the rate of abortions every thousand women of reproductive age fell steadily in years after its legalization”.

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