
Argentina legalises abortion, joining a small Latin American group
ARGENTINA HAS become the latest, and most populous, country in Latin America and the Caribbean to legalise abortion. On December 30th its Senate voted to legalise terminations in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy; previously abortions had been permitted only in cases of rape or when the mother’s health was in danger or the fetus malformed. As well as legalising many of the roughly 500,000 abortions that already take place each year in Argentina, according to campaigners, the change will increase the proportion of women in Latin America and the Caribbean with access to legal abortion from 3% to 10%.