On June 14, 2018, the Argentinian Chamber of Deputies in Congress sanctioned a bill to legalise the voluntary interruption of pregnancy.
For Corina Rodríguez Enríquez, Argentine feminist economist and member of the Executive Committee of DAWN, this represents an achievement of women and feminist organizations that managed, in their diversity, to carry forward a collective strategy within the parliament, together with the mass mobilization of people out on streets.
“This means a great step, after decades of struggle, towards overcoming conservative views that are still deeply rooted in the country, and the insistent influence of the Catholic Church“, she says.
A spectacular mobilization
It is estimated that around one million people mobilized during the 20+ hour discussion of the proposed bill. Undoubtedly, this was a decisive factor when it came to tipping the vote in favour of the approval, which resulted in 129 votes in favour and 125 against.
Over two full days, Argentina was flooded by a “green tide”, the color that identifies the civil society campaign that promoted the bill. That tide filled the streets and squares of the country and settled in front of the Congress in the city of Buenos Aires. It also expanded into the provinces where women, bisexuals, lesbians, trans, transvestites, non-binary and gay men mobilized in the streets and met in community spaces to follow the debate. Likewise, there were demonstrations at the consulates of Argentina around the world, receiving innumerable illustrations of international solidarity.
The vigil extended throughout the night of the 13th till the dawn of the 14th, and it was lived as a true celebration; a feminist coven waiting for the first sanction of the Project of Law of Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy (IVE) by the Chamber of Deputies. Florencia Partenio, of the Executive Committee of DAWN, was present and testifies:
“We arrived at that vigil with the strength from the decades of struggle of women’s and the feminist movements in Argentina, with the 32 National Women’s Meetings, with the power of the two international strikes of 8M, the mobilizations of the 3J of Ni Una Menos (Not One Less) … We arrived to build sorority in the streets, to back us up and to back our compañeras of the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion, which recovers a struggle of decades to situate the consequences of the current legal status of abortion for the life and health of women and pregnant people.”
The Campaign is a broad and diverse federal alliance, launched on May 28, 2005, International Day of Action for Women’s Health, with ability and strength to coordinate activities simultaneously in different parts of the country under the slogan: “Sexual education to decide, contraceptives not to abort, legal abortion not to die“.
During the days of vigil, the self-managed organization of women and feminists from different spaces (trade union, territorial, student, LGBTI, scientific, journalists, political parties, etc.) held a festival with performances from musical bands and theatre. As the compañeras of the campaign expressed:
“It was struggle and organization with a specific methodology: feminist and popular, it was the Campaign deploying its knowledge and its force to make a law happen, with 13 years of arguments that finally reached Congress” (1).
Now the feminist movement in Argentina is organizing to achieve the approval of the law in the Chamber of Senators, a battle that will undoubtedly be arduous. We trust in the organized strength of women, and in the irreversible nature of the change that thousands and thousands of mobilized young women are pushing.
The fight is global
The events in Argentina are motivating other countries in the region, where it is expected that the struggle for the legalization of abortion will gain strength and will be imposed on parliamentary agendas.
The success of Argentine women can also be seen as the expression of a broader and international social movement, which has manifested itself in mobilizations and meetings of women of different generations, organized and unorganized, who have been present on the streets of different countries both in the global South and North, calling attention to demands that have been historically ignored.
Such is the view of Cecilia Alemany, also a member of the Executive Committee of DAWN, who maintains that, in the case of the “green tide” in Argentina, the mobilization of women of all generations, including the youngest ones (“the pibas” in the local language, which are often perceived as apathetic or indifferent to politics) is an indicator that we could be facing a process to change the rules of the game:
“Just like the youth movement of May 1968 -initially French and later appropriated by youth from all over the world- made its appearance on the streets to question its reality and change the system, so now, fifty years later, the June of the Pibas can give us clues about how, in 2018, women of all generations come together when their rights are at stake. “
Finally, the struggle of women in Argentina shows us that, despite being in the 21st century and having so many forms of virtual mobilization, the streets continue to give us strength and allow us to continue changing the reality that has always oppressed us. The June of the Pibas, as well as the 8M in other countries, is here to stay.
May international solidarity be extended and multiplied because we want ourselves alive and free!
The whole of Latin America is going to be feminist!
Let abortion be legal!
(1) http://latfem.org/13j-la-lucha-la-organizacion-y-la-alegria-son-feministas/
To know more about the Argentinian process:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/14/world/americas/abortion-argentina-passage.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/14/argentina-congress-vote-legalise-abortion