REALity October, 2018 Ottawa, ON
Pro-Abortionists Defeated in Argentina
Latin America is mainly pro-life, with only Uruguay and Cuba fully decriminalizing abortion. International pro-abortionists, therefore, decided this situation in Latin America needed to change.
In order to set an example for other countries in Latin America, pro-abortionists there applied a strategy to pressure Argentina, one of the largest countries in Latin America, to legalize abortion to set the stage for other countries to follow suit.
As a result, Argentina became a tangled web of confusion, chaos and international pressure over the abortion issue. For example, UN monitoring committees of UN treaties (whose decisions are not enforceable) and the UN Human Rights Council insisted that Argentina must liberalize its abortion laws, arguing that there was an international law requirement to do so. This was a deliberate lie. International Planned Parenthood and Amnesty International spent millions of dollars pressuring Argentina to change its abortion law, and U.S. billionaire, George Soros, heavily funded pro-abortion Argentinian non-government organizations (NGOs) to lobby Argentinian parliamentarians. Pro-abortion demonstrations, led by bare breasted feminists, filled the streets of Buenos Aires demanding the abortion law be changed.
This pressure resulted in a bill to legalize abortion up to 14 weeks and to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions. This was passed by Parliament’s lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, on June 23, 2018, after a long fractious debate.
In order for the bill to become law, however, both Chambers of the Argentinian Parliament had to approve it. So, the battle for life, although lost in the lower house, was brought to the Upper Chamber of Senators, which consisted of 72 members. At the outset, it appeared nearly impossible to defeat the pro-abortion bill under all the international pressure. However, the pro-life movement in Argentina accomplished this. After a marathon debate of 15 hours, the bill was defeated by a vote of 38-31 in the upper Chamber of Parliament on August 9, 2018.
How Pro-life Argentina Achieved its Magnificent Success
Against all odds, the pro-life movement in Argentina defeated the bill by arousing the sleeping giant of pro-life Argentinians, who had previously not been active in the crucial debate.
To start its work, pro-life supporters adopted a sky-blue neckerchief symbolizing the right to life. This symbol recalled the sky blue of Argentina’s flag. Consequently, love and respect for the unborn became synonymous with love for their country.
In contrast, pro-abortion activists wore green neckerchiefs – the colour of a dollar bill, which quickly became identified with the international financial pressure on Argentina to legalize abortion. This “colour blindness” by the pro-abortionists turned out to be a major strategic blunder on their part.
Pro-lifers also woke up to the fact that although some Senators were pro-life in principle, there were other Senators who were very attentive to pressure from voters, owing to the fact that they were acutely aware of the number of votes they needed to get re-elected. They were indifferent to scientific and moral arguments, but impressed by the vote count.
Initially, many pro-lifers thought that convincing law-makers that abortion was a moral evil and medically unnecessary was the path to victory. Using this strategy in the lower Chamber, over 400 lawyers, doctors, biologists and even journalists had testified in defence of the right to life before various parliamentary committees when the abortion bill was being considered in that lower Chamber. The law makers there, however, were unmoved by these arguments. It was apparent to pro-life strategists that many legislators would base their vote on political considerations only, and nothing else. So be it.
Pro-lifers then began to visit their Senators to tell them bluntly that if they voted for the abortion bill, they would not vote for them. This was especially useful since the next elections in Argentina were to take place in 2019. Many Senators began to pay attention to the concerns of these pro-lifers.
In addition, a mobilization by normal, everyday people took place in the streets of Argentina in the weeks leading up to the vote. The streets were no longer a place for left-wing activists, but were overwhelmed by pro-life demonstrations. A demonstration in March in over 200 cities nationwide brought out thousands. All together 3.6 million pro-life demonstrators filled the streets of Argentina. This dwarfed the estimated figure of 350,000 pro-abortion demonstrators. By the time of the actual vote, even the country’s most important newspapers, Clarin and La Nación, recognized that the abortion bill would be defeated.
As a result, Argentina has provided Latin America and the world with an example of how people can stop the global pro-abortion movement, even with only a small amount of funding. The Argentinian landscape has been changed forever as a result of the defeat. Pro-life issues will no longer be minor issues in that country.
This victory sends a very clear message to the rest of Latin America. Pro-life movements in other Latin American countries have been closely following the situation in Argentina in solidarity with Argentine pro-lifers. And now, they know what pro-life people are able to accomplish when they set their minds to it, and astutely adapt their strategy to suit the situation.