A year on from Argentine abortion law, change is slow - Yahoo News
A year ago Argentina joined the limited ranks of Latin American countries to have legalized abortion, but while that gave hope to millions of women, changing mentalities, practices and infrastructure has proved more difficult.
"In small villages you go for an ultrasound in the morning and in the afternoon the baker congratulates you on your pregnancy," Monik Rodriguez, 33, told AFP.
Ropdriguez, who has three children, runs a service accompanying women who want to have an abortion in Salta, a conservative Catholic province in the South American country.
Away from the big city of Buenos Aires, where women erupted in celebration when the law was approved, many in more remote and conservative areas of Argentina face the same stigma as before.
"There are still things that need to come out of hiding," said Rodriguez, who can take up to 125 telephone calls a month as part of the project launched by the Women's Strength civil association.
"The most important thing is to listen. It's about trying to overcome the hurdles, accompanying them through the health system so they don't get lost in the bureaucratic labyrinth."
Rodriguez takes calls from all sorts: teenagers and first-time mothers to women with large families and even those that are pre-menopausal.
"On this line, abortion is not recommended but neither is motherhood romanticized," said Rodriguez, who underwent a secret abortion a decade ago when already mother to one child.
"I was late and had an abortion. It went badly and I had to go to hospital. The tests showed I hadn't been pregnant.
"It was the secrecy that created worry. Along with misinformation, that is what puts us at risk."
The government estimates that 3,000 women died between 1983 and 2020 in clandestine abortions, of which there were up to 500,000 a year.
- Anti-abortion pressure -
For a century, abortion was only legal in cases of rape or if the mother's life was at risk.
source: https://news.yahoo.com/argentine-abortion-law-change-slow-015131356.html
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