The main question debated was the decriminalization of abortion. Delegates at this year’s event also discussed a range of other questions from unemployment, to prostitution, police violence, and whether “left-wing” governments—from Salvador Allende’s in Chile in the 1970s to that of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela today—have helped the struggle for women’s equality.

On the opening day of the conference, women rallied at Independence Plaza in downtown Mendoza. They were met by hundreds of opponents of a woman’s right to choose organized by Archbishop José María Arancíbia, who had urged participants at a Friday Mass before the women’s gathering to turn out to protest.

The conference workshops took place in various schools in the city. The Catholic church in Mendoza had organized to place placards at these schools with pictures of children saying “This is our future,” referring to abortion, and others that said “No to abortion” or “Murderers.”

During the three-day meeting, discussion focused largely on a woman’s right to choose, according to conference organizers, including during a workshop on “Human Rights.” The term human rights is often used in Argentina in reference to the fight to bring to justice those responsible for murders and “disappearances” of more than 30,000 trade unionists, revolutionists, and others during the U.S.-supported military dictatorship in the 1970s and ’80s.

“We will continue to insist that the decriminalization of abortion is a question of human rights that is urgent to confront because it is the poor women who die,” said Nora Cortiñas, according to the Argentine newspaper Página 12. The paper said that Cortiñas wore a white handkerchief on her head and a green one around her hand—the white meaning one of her family members perished during the dictatorship and the green indicating support for a woman’s right to choose.

At a workshop on “Police Brutality and Rights,” participants debated the role of cops in society. According to reports in the Argentine press, participants expressed a variety of opinions, reflecting the fact that women from a range of social classes take part in these meetings.

A large number of delegates came from organizations of the unemployed. Florencia Costilla, a young woman from the province of Tucumán, said, “In Tucumán we suffer from police persecution. The police patrols stop young men whether they have documents or not, drunk or not, minors or not.” She concluded by saying, “This is what we should debate and not whether police are good or bad because they respond to the interests of the rich.”

Erica De Ibarreta, who teaches journalism in Buenos Aires, disagreed. “The discussion about the police as an institution is off,” she said. “This workshop is off.”

In the same workshop in a debate over the question of jobs and insecurity, Costilla reportedly said, “Yes, it’s true that insecurity comes from unemployment, but it is the fault of the state.”

De Ibarreta disagreed, saying the state is not to blame and that individuals themselves are often responsible for staying out of work.

Despite differences on these questions, delegates resolved to continue pressing the fight to decriminalize abortion. Over the last year, this campaign has included more frequent demonstrations and other public actions to expand support for the right to choose.

One of the slogans conference participants agreed to push coming out of this meeting is “Contraceptives to minimize the need for abortion; Legalize abortion so we won’t die!”

In Argentina, 27.4 percent of maternal deaths are due to complications of abortion. In the province of Mendoza this figure reaches 35 percent. Throughout Latin America and the Caribbean botched abortions are a major cause of maternal death today. Abortion is legal only in Cuba and Guyana. In Puerto Rico, abortion is not a crime because U.S. laws and court decisions are enforced in that U.S. colony. In other countries abortion is considered a crime except under very limited circumstances. Complications from abortion account for 21 percent of maternal deaths in Latin America as a whole, and up to 50 percent in some countries.

No politicians have introduced any bills in the Argentine Congress so far to decriminalize abortion. Senator Vilma Ibarra of the Frente Grande, a coalition of liberal parties and groups of the middle-class left, recently submitted a bill that would allow abortion only in the case of rape.
 
 
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