Uruguay will shortly become the first country in South America where abortion is legal. After a heated debate, the lower chamber of deputies voted by 50 votes to 49 in late September to legalise abortion. The remaining hurdles before the bill becomes law will be easy to leap. The next step for congress will be approving legislation submitted by President José Mujica in August to legalise state control and regulation of the importation, production, acquisition, commercialisation and distribution of marijuana in the country.
Cuba is the only country in Latin America where abortions are accessible to all women during the first trimester of pregnancy. Under the legislation approved in Uruguay, women would have the right to a legal abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and, in cases of rape, during the first 14 weeks. If the mother’s life is at risk or the foetus is too deformed to survive after birth women would also be entitled to a termination.
The chamber made some fairly significant changes to the bill approved by the senate so it must now go back to the senate for the final seal of approval before it becomes law. The senate had approved an even more liberal version of the abortion measure so this step should be a formality. President Mujica, meanwhile, has already made clear that he has absolutely no intention of vetoing the law and will ratify it when he receives it.
The day before the vote, a pro-life march took place in central Montevideo, and on the day of the vote itself, a pro-abortion demonstration took place outside the congressional building led by naked women with painted bodies.
The final vote was split along party lines, although several deputies on both sides of the debate said they could not toe the party line in good conscience and let their alternates vote instead. The former president and current Senator for the traditional Partido Nacional (PN, Blancos), Luis Alberto Lacalle (1990-1995), said he was opposed to abortion on “philosophical, religious and scientific grounds”.
Lacalle said that it was worth reading the explanation Mujica’s predecessor Tabaré Vázquez (2005-2010), an inveterate opponent of Lacalle’s except on this issue, had given for the presidential veto he issued over a similar law approved by congress in 2008.
In his original veto message Vázquez, an oncologist, said “the legislation cannot ignore the reality of the existence of a human life in gestation, something that has clearly been revealed by science.” There was plenty of support for this viewpoint in the lower chamber and one PN deputy, Pablo Abdala, said he would promote a popular referendum to overturn the law.
Even if Abdala succeeds in his bid to stage a referendum, polls suggest that Uruguayans are significantly less conservative than their political representatives: some 52% of respondents to a poll by Cifra conducted in September said they would vote to legalise abortion in a referendum, while just 34% said they would oppose it.
How liberal is it really?
President Mujica argued that the law approved by congress legalising abortion would result in fewer pregnant women going to backstreet clinics to have their pregnancies terminated in unsafe ways. He also argued that it would, paradoxically, lead to a reduction in abortions.
Mujica was referring to measures added by deputies, diluting the law, which have angered abortion rights advocates. For instance, under the revised law, women seeking abortions will have to go through an intimidating process, which could deter many, consisting of justifying their request before a panel of at least three professionals - a gynaecologist, psychologist and social worker. They will be given advice about alternatives, such as adoption and support services, if they elect to keep the baby. If they still want to proceed with the abortion after this, they will have to wait a further five days “to reflect” on the consequences of their decision.
The counter-argument to Mujica is that by requiring women to go through such bureaucratic and psychological barriers many might still prefer to get an abortion the ‘traditional’ and dangerous way. As many as 30,000 abortions are believed to be practised in Uruguay every year, which is high given that only 47,000 children are born each year.
The leader of the women’s rights NGO Mujer y Salud en Uruguay (MYSU), Lilián Abracinskas, said the final law was not only more restrictive than the 2008 law vetoed by Vázquez, but was infused with a spirit actively discouraging women from having abortions, not to mention impractical: there is a dearth of qualified health professionals in the interior, meaning that some women might not have time to carry out all of the necessary administrative requirements. Abracinskas said this was neither the law for which she had campaigned nor the law that Uruguayans wanted.
Mujica opens up on Argentina
President Mujica has a long-established reputation for plain-talking - and he lived up to it in an interview with the national press in late September. He said Uruguay was “a half schizophrenic country: we suck the blood of the Argentines and then spit it out”.
Mujica chose a football metaphor to demonstrate this. He said that in 2005, in the final group qualification game for the World Cup, Uruguay needed a draw to progress to a play-off with Australia to qualify for the World Cup the following year; Argentina had already qualified from the group, and there was a tacit agreement between the players not to try very hard as a friendly gesture to help Uruguay through - “but when Argentina played we were all Germany fans.”
Mujica went on to argue, “Of course the policies being carried out by Argentina are enormously protectionist and they are creating problems everywhere. But, what do we do? Break off relations? Declare war? They (the opposition Partido Colorado [PC]) say we should be firmer, but what is ‘being firmer’?”
There are other differences between Argentina and Uruguay, other than trade barriers, which are blocking Uruguayan exports in contravention of the free movement of goods enshrined in the founding treaty of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). Foremost among these is the dredging of the bi-national Martín García canal.
Mujica claims to have extracted assurances from his Argentine peer President Cristina Fernández to proceed with a project to deepen the canal from 32 to 34 feet. However, the protracted delay has infuriated opposition politicians: Juan Manuel Garino, a Colorado deputy, denounced that he had been offered a bribe of US$1m by Argentine officials from the bi-national administrative commission of the River Plate (Carp) to support a bid by the Dutch company Riovia to carry out the work to deepen the canal. The delay, and this allegation, has also strained bilateral relations, with harsh communiqués exchanged between both foreign ministries.
Mujica, ever keen to play down the friction, said that the two governments were discussing establishing a bi-national dredging company. He explained that the canal will always require dredging and “it costs an arm and a leg” every time it needs doing.
Cuba decriminalises abortions in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. Abortion is allowed in Argentina and Colombia in cases of rape or if the mother’s life is endangered. Abortions are also legal in the first trimester in Mexico City but not elsewhere in the country.
Uruguay’s economy grew 3.8% year-on-year in the second quarter, having expanded by 4.2% in the first quarter. A severe drought affected electricity generation, lifting costs. The lack of rain also meant Uruguay had to import more energy from Argentina and Brazil.
