MEXICO CITY: The streets of cities throughout Latin American Cities had been bathed in inexperienced Thursday as tens of hundreds of ladies marched to commemorate Worldwide Protected Abortion Day.
Latin American feminists have spent many years combating to roll again strict prohibitions, though there are nonetheless few international locations with a complete ban, like El Salvador and Dominican Republic.
In Mexico, marchers celebrated the current determination by Mexico’s Supreme Courtroom to decriminalise abortions on the federal degree. In Argentina, marchers had a extra somber tone, worrying that the energy of a populist far-right presidential candidate going into elections in October may sign peril after years of labor by feminists.
Abortion was the center of the protests, however crowds of ladies additionally raised alarm concerning the area’s excessive charges of gender-based violence in addition to abuses geared toward LGBTQ+ communities.
Inexperienced smoke floated over a roaring crowd of hundreds of ladies in Mexico Metropolis who waved inexperienced handkerchiefs, which have turn into the image of Latin America’s “green wave” abortion motion. Indicators studying “It’s my decision” and “Free and safe abortions for everyone” speckled the group.
The march got here simply weeks after Mexico’s Supreme Courtroom knocked down all federal prison penalties for abortion, ruling that nationwide legal guidelines prohibiting the process are unconstitutional and violate girls’s rights. The transfer may also require federal well being establishments to supply abortion to anybody who requests it.
“It’s absolutely an achievement,” stated Fernanda Castro, an organizer at GIRE, the ladies’s rights group that introduced ahead the lawsuit earlier than Mexico’s excessive court docket. “And now we have another even more important fight — decriminalizing abortion in the minds of the people.”
Whereas 20 Mexican states nonetheless have abortion bans on the books, the choice by the Supreme Courtroom tremendously expanded entry to the procedue in a rustic the place reproductive legal guidelines had been lengthy outlined by its non secular and conservative roots.
Latin American feminists have spent many years combating to roll again strict prohibitions.
Mexico Metropolis was the primary Mexican jurisdiction to decriminalize abortion 15 years in the past. The development picked up velocity in Argentina, which in 2020 legalized the process. In 2022, Colombia, a extremely conservative nation, did the identical.
Brazil could also be subsequent. Presently, abortion is a criminal offense with exceptions for circumstances of rape and delivery defects in a fetus, however a case earlier than the nation’s Supreme Courtroom may doubtlessly decriminalize the process as much as 12 weeks of gestation.
“The green wave is going to keep growing and (Brazilian women) are not alone,” Castro stated.
Whereas marches in Mexico and different components of the area had been celebratory, in Argentina’s capital of Buenos Aires, the demonstration was marked with unease.
As elections loom in October, many within the crowd marching towards the Congress constructing concern their authorized positive factors might quickly get rolled again with the rise of right-wing candidate Javier Milei.
Now the main candidate in polls, Milei, has spoken out in opposition to abortion, obligatory intercourse schooling in colleges and free medical protection for intercourse change remedies, amongst different points. If he wins, he has promised to carry a referendum to repeal the decriminalisation of abortion nationwide authorised by Congress in 2022.
“More than winning more rights, this is about protecting them. The most important thing is to protect what’s already there,” stated Sara Rivas, an artwork scholar. “Milei is a denialist. We’ve seen him deny everything from femicides to the years-long struggle that has brought us to this green wave.”
Nonetheless, Rivas, who carried an indication with a drawing of Milei hanging from a inexperienced bandana, stated girls will flip to the identical strategy they’ve used for many years to press for his or her objectives.
“Our answer is that we are here. We are not going to leave the streets, because these gains, we conquered them in the streets,” she stated.