Nelly Minyersky: “If you’re deciding over a woman’s life, don’t talk to me about freedom”

This week the new government declared 2024 as the “Year of the Defense of Life, Liberty and Property.” In that humble but significant act, La Libertad Avanza opened the way to the debate for the repeal of the Law on Access to Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy (IVE). Along these lines, the presidential spokesman, Manuel Adorni, affirmed that abortion is an objective, although he warned that the issue “is not yet on the agenda.” For his part, Rodolfo Barra, Attorney General of the National Treasury, former Senator Eduardo Menem and former Congresswoman Cristina Guzmán, said in a newspaper article: “We have, therefore, a well-founded hope that, in this Year of Life, the also inhumane Law 27.610 will be repealed.” In the wake of this news, abortion was back on the agenda and that’s why I spoke with historic women’s rights activist Nelly Minyersky. On this note, I offer some brilliant reflections on a debate that has already taken place but has clearly not been settled. What about the IVE? Why is such a young law once again in the eye of the storm?
OF ERRORS AND INTERPRETATIONSWith 2020, the extensive sessions in Congress set several records and ended that stage with a hard-fought but triumphant number of votes in favor of abortion: 38 senators in favor and 29 against. The arguments against it were almost delirious and worthy of parody. Arguments that feminisms thought they had left in the past until LLA took office in December 2023 with a strong anti-rights agenda. “I’m very worried because it’s really something unusual that’s happening. It’s hard for me to talk about a president who speaks without any scientific basis and adjusts the terms according to interpretations and lies. I say it with all the letters because it lies. In fact, in the famous article that Barra publishes about abortion, they tell a lot of falsehoods,” explains Nelly. Nelly Minyersky is a lawyer and activist in the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion for decades. As a lawyer, she analyzes the ruling party and its legal moves to defend women’s sexual and reproductive rights. “Barra talks about scientific bases that do not exist and that have never been accredited. Now they talk about the human being in their discourse. Apparently, these gentlemen consider that the human being is also an embryo that does not have any of the characteristics of the human being,” he says ironically. One of LLA’s arguments regarding the constitutionality of the IVE law is based on Law 23.849, which is the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Nelly answers: “The Civil Code is the only place where it says that a child is a child from conception. That was worded that way for hereditary purposes because if the father died before birth, the child could not inherit.” IS REPEAL POSSIBLE? One of Javier Milei’s own campaign threats was, on several occasions, to talk about a possible repeal of the abortion law. In fact, on social media, it is one of the libertarian complaints that ranks the most: “Why do we still have abortion in our country, president?” his electorate asks him whenever he can. For Nelly, although it should not be repealed, with political will, everything can be repealed. “Abortion is a scapegoat. It is an argument that is used to hide many other things about discrimination, to keep women in submission and as mere reproducers. They can repeal, they can do anything. In fact, they’re doing legal nonsense right now. Even so, when we won the judicial and legal battle it was because we are a hallmark of work and legal research. Abortion in our country is supported by the human rights treaties that they advocate so much,” explains Nelly. Among the arguments given in favor of legal abortion is the freedom and decision of the woman or pregnant person to decide about her own body. The lawyer insists on this and reinforces: “Our Constitution contains the right to autonomy of women, the right that is located in the dilemma between the life of the woman and that of the embryo.
Life as an autonomous, corporeal, independent human being is not the same as the life of a developing embryo or fetus that is directly dependent on the mother’s body. And that’s not just me saying it, it’s science saying it. Because for now there is no life of a fetus outside the woman’s body and that is a fact in itself.” In the talk, Nelly refers to a possible response to the following scenario: if there is an already born baby that needs help versus an encapsulated embryo, who are those who defend life saving? This kind of ethical riddle almost answers itself, and it is in this argument that the truth is hidden.They are part of our reality today: in Argentina, thanks to the IVE, there are almost no hospitalizations for clandestine abortions that were poorly performed, before the law the number climbed to 70,000 per year. At the same time, reinforced by Comprehensive Sex Education, teenage pregnancies decreased by 48%.   “The church used to have a reasoning that, for me, was more respectable and I can share that. The Church said that there, in that embryo, there was a soul. Not now, now they talk about freedom and revolve the argument around beliefs. In a democracy, beliefs are not valid because morality does not apply to everyone. Rights have to be equal for everyone, not according to what each person believes about that right,” insists the specialist.
For Nelly, as for thousands of people in the country, reproductive autonomy is a pillar and an achievement that has been the result of years of struggle and militancy by hundreds of feminist organizations. That triumph was not easy, it took years of social and political debates to become a conquered right. But as these types of laws advance, the spaces that advocate for defeating these changes become more resistant. The empowerment of women and pregnant people generates rejection in sectors that fear losing power in the face of equality.  “No doctor was ever convicted of homicide because an embryo or fetus died before birth. Life has always been determined by birth. Why did abortion always have less punishment than a homicide? Because it’s not the same. It was never the same,” the lawyer adds. The slogan “Don’t mess with my children” is not a simple phrase, it hides private property behind it. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) states that children are not considered the private property of their parents.   That phrase, which would later be repeated in different parts of the world, was born against the Comprehensive Sex Education law that teaches, among many things, the importance of prevention. “Nobody is in favor of abortion, we are in favor of prevention. That women and pregnant people can decide and know how to take care of themselves so that they do not have to carry pregnancies to term if they do not want to. A high-risk pregnancy is much more dangerous than an abortion for the mother. In all this time, the 70,000 hospitalizations for poorly performed abortions dropped to almost zero. That’s life,” he explains. The president has said several times that he wants to hold a plebiscite so that the people can express themselves for or against legal abortion. The EVI is an issue that seems to matter to him, in fact, in his first speech at DAVOS, Javier Milei referred to the EVI as a “bloody policy of population control”. For Minyersky, such accounts are “dangerous” and “unhelpful.” “It’s not that in our country we have free abortion at any time, it is aborted up to the 14th week and then there are requirements such as that it is in danger of health or that it is the product of rape. Someone who was democratically elected is spreading lies and horrible ideas. Milei cannot say such brutality as ‘rivers of blood’. If you’re deciding over a woman’s life, don’t talk to me about freedom,” she says. Regarding the plebiscite, the lawyer maintains: “I understand that it is not applicable when it comes to human rights because the law says so. It’s as if the president wants to hold a plebiscite on the right to eat or to be able to go to school. The constitution says that human rights are not planned and women’s sexual and reproductive rights are human rights,” she says. Milei’s triumph in December was a blow to the popular movements of our country and particularly to the feminist movements. Recent polls show that young men around the world are increasingly represented by right-wing ideologies while women are represented by progressive ideologies. What happened in these years? Why didn’t the human rights discourses penetrate deeply into the adolescents? For Minyersky, one of the problems is enunciation. “We have to find a language that appeals to men because at no time did we want to demonize them. A society does not exist without them, we are all human beings with rights. They, too, are social products of patriarchy, and they, too, are affected by its existence. The issue is that there are many of them, with power, that do not suit them,” he says. Just as young men are increasingly conservative, women represent ideas of empowerment and autonomy. That contrast has never been seen in history and what is coming speaks of a real paradigm shift.  “I’m confident that we’re going to have to fight and we’re going to take to the streets again to defend what is ours. In addition our arguments that are scientific, logical, and fair. Today there are no deaths due to abortion, the theory has been proven and that is undeniable,” Nelly concludes. 

Original source in Spanish