After announcing the submission to Congress of the Draft Law on Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy, President Alberto Fernández predicted that, in his view, the measure is likely to be approved.” I think we’re in a position this time for abortion to become law,” he argued in dialogue with FutuRock, adding, “This time there won’t be a president calling on a governor to have his senators vote against it.” Referencing his keynote address, the representative argued: “I announced on 1 March that we were going to send the project; We had it advanced but on March 19th came the coronavirus and isolation and I didn’t want to add more stress to the health system.”
“Even though it is true that abortions occur pharmacologically, what I sought is that it loosens health tension a little, and that if a woman needs the health system she does not have to be under the stress of a pandemic,” she continued. In this sense, she uttered a phrase that makes noise to the ears of the feminist movement: “The difference with other times is that beyond the enormous struggle of the feminist movement for this, I really feel like the first standard-bearer of this claim.” He’s not a president who complied by sending a law so they don’t say he didn’t comply. He’s a President who actively takes care of it to get it out, and I’ll make every effort to make this bill a law,” he added.
After rejecting episodes of violence against some militants in recent weeks, Fernandez insisted that “it is not abortion yes or abortion no, because abortions continue to occur.” Here what we are discussing is whether abortions are done underground, with all the risk involved, or we can perform abortions in public hospitals and giving the health conditions to the women who ask for them,” she explained. Once again, he clarified again that “we are not making abortion mandatory” and recalled that, together with the IVE project, the 1000-day plan, which involves comprehensive assistance to women during their child’s pregnancy and early childhood, was sent to Congress. >
Finally, on the Church’s stance on this issue, he noted: “St. Thomas or St. Augustine said that there were two abortions, one that deserved punishment and one did not. And marked abortions not punishable between 90 and 120 days of pregnancy.” He continued: “The Church always valued the existence of the soul before the body and then argued that there was a time when the mother warned of the entry of the soul into the fetus, between the 90th and 120th, because she felt movements in her womb, the famous pataditas.” In this way, he concluded: “The Church also had in its parents a vision about pregnancy and see how complex all this is. I told the Secretary of State (of the Vatican) when I visited the Pope in February and he changed the subject. All it shows is that it is a dilemma of yesteryear from a large branch of the Church.”
