Access to abortion in Miley’s Argentina declines three years after legalization

Montecarlo is a small city in the province of Misiones. Argentinawith a population of just under 20,000 inhabitants. Those walking around the area can find paved streets, but most roads are covered in dirt. Anyone who wants to get from this city to Posadas, the provincial capital, will have to travel about three hours.

Maria (who asked not to use her real name so as not to be recognized in her city) says that in Monte Carlo all the neighbors know each other. She has four children: the eldest is 13 years old, and the youngest is just over a year old.

She is breastfeeding as she speaks and explains that she has been taking on all the housework and childcare responsibilities for some time now: her husband lost his registered job in February and was forced to move to a nearby town where he works as a cleaner. work in the fields.

In July, Maria noticed a delay in her menstruation despite using contraception. The situation at home was difficult, and supporting four children on an informal income made it difficult for her family to survive each month. She says having another child was not an option. As soon as she suspected she was pregnant, she went to her regular gynecologist, who helped her give birth to her children.

“When I found out about this, I panicked because my child was only a year old at the time. I had complications with other births, and after the last one, the doctor told me that I could not have another child, that it would be too risky,” Maria explains to CNN.

During the consultation, Maria asked about her options for having an abortion, but the doctor told her that he did not perform such procedures and asked her to leave.

After an initial negative response, Maria was given an appointment at a local public hospital. There she also sought help, but they could not provide her with information about alternatives. So she looked for a third option: she went to El Dorado, a town neighboring Monte Carlo, where the public hospital has a family planning unit.

There she was seated with other patients and explained to them all how the abortion procedure worked. When some of them asked whether the hospital would provide the medicine, they were told there was not enough and they would be given a prescription to buy the abortion drug misoprostol privately.

“At that time, I didn’t have 100,000 pesos (about $73 at the July exchange rate). My husband lost his registered job, so I went to a government hospital to get it for free,” she explains, adding that she tried to inquire about misoprostol from specialists at a government hospital in her area, but they also did not have free medicines .

“When I asked, they told me: no, we don’t have them. I started crying when returning home, I was overcome with despair because my husband had gone far away to work and I was left alone. It felt like all the doors were closed to me. And I returned home in tears with a child in my arms,” says Maria.

CNN contacted the Misiones Provincial Ministry of Health where they confirmed: “This year we have experienced significant shortages within the National Sexual Health Program for a basket of sexual health products, including misoprostol. “The province is working to restore the situation and in the specific case of the investigation, medications are being sent to hospitals to ensure access.”

Since the start of its administration, the government of Argentine President Javier Miley has stopped purchasing necessary supplies for abortion access and has not delivered a single box of misoprostol, mifepristone or manual vacuum aspiration cannulas, essential elements to guarantee access to abortion for pregnant women. , according to the information request submitted human rights group Amnesty International.

In Argentina, in 2021, abortion was legalized in all cases up to 14 weeks of pregnancy. According to the law, a person seeking an abortion has the right to do so safely and free of charge.

However, in the past year, this right has become increasingly difficult to realize in the country, as confirmed by organizations that monitor reproductive rights in Argentina, such as Amnesty International, the Latin American Group for Justice and Gender and the Safe Abortion Access Network, among others.

According to a report presented in May by the National Directorate of Sexual and Reproductive Health of the Argentine Ministry of Health, the distribution of drugs and equipment for manual vacuum aspiration had not been carried out until this month due to a lack of stocks and guarantees; these supplies for the remaining months will depend on the progress of a government tender, which the moment of an official response was still being held.

In September, Amnesty International issued a new request for information on this issue. To date, the government has not responded to this new request. CNN repeated the request and also did not receive a response.

Finding a workaround

As a last resort, Maria looked for alternatives on the Internet. This is how she met Amnesty International, an organization dedicated to the promotion and protection of human rights. Through a form on their website, she described the barriers she faced in accessing abortion in her province, and within a week, NGO specialists contacted her with information on how to obtain free medication to assert her right to legal assistance. safe and free abortion.

Maria is one of the cases where Amnesty International had to intervene to ensure safe abortion. The law states that persons wishing to access this procedure must guarantee their right for a maximum of ten days. It took Maria almost a month to have an abortion.

According to the organization, complaints about barriers to accessing voluntary abortion via a complaint form available on their website increased by 80% in the year to August 2024 compared to the previous year.

Lucila Galkin, director of gender and diversity at Amnesty International Argentina, warns in an interview with CNN: “The official information is that there will be no supplies until October, but we know the situation is even worse. This is much more critical because the procurement of these materials has not even begun yet, so most likely they will not be available within a year.”

The contrast with the data from previous years is striking, explains Galkin. “Although almost 150,000 courses of misoprostol and mifepristone combination treatment were guaranteed or distributed across the country in 2023, provinces did not receive supplies this year, and we confirmed this with public information requests to various provinces,” she said.

Likewise, information received from health care providers from the Safe Abortion Access Network (RedAAS, acronym in Spanish) is consistent with this. One of its directors, Silvina Ramos, explains to CNN that the lack of distribution of these drugs is exacerbated by shortages of condoms, oral contraceptives, implants and a full range of sexual and reproductive health products.

Amnesty’s Galkin stressed that provinces report not only a lack of access to legal voluntary abortion, but also a shortage of contraceptive methods. “There is a lot of concern about the impact this will have on family planning,” she said.

CNN contacted the national health ministry about the drug shortage and a second request for public information but did not receive a response.

Workaround

Provincial governments are looking for alternatives to fill the gap left by the national government in reproductive health, according to Amnesty International and RedAAS.

“Some regions immediately went for direct procurement, because otherwise the rights of women and pregnant women are ultimately violated,” explains Galkin.

Ramos adds: “Provinces are purchasing supplies in quantities that will likely not meet all demand, but some provinces are willing to take on the procurement of materials.”

The problem with devolving this to each province, both experts explain, is that it exacerbates inequalities in different regions of the country, since not all regions have the same resources.

Ramos argues that the impact of the Milei government’s refusal on public health policy could be twofold: “Women who end up not having access to abortion and who may resort to unsafe abortions or continue forced pregnancies. These are options for a woman who wants an abortion but is unable to undergo the procedure.”

Galkin concludes: “Over two years of implementation, it was demonstrated how this contributed to a reduction in, for example, the rate of maternal mortality from abortion by 53% between 2020 and 2022. Legal voluntary termination of pregnancy is another health service that should be included in the compulsory medical program and should be available to the population, since it is a public health issue.”

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