In the 23 November Campaign newsletter, we summarised the shadow report to CEDAW by a group of some 15 civil society organisations in Argentina, Situación del Aborto en Argentina. The report has now been translated into English. Here is an excerpt:In June 2015, the National Ministry of Health published on its webpage a new “Protocol for Comprehensive Care of Persons Entitled to Legally Interrupt A Pregnancy”. This Protocol is a revision and update of the medical, bioethical and legal information provided by the 2010 Technical Guide. Even though the new Protocol establishes that “it is mandatory to implement this Protocol in the entire Argentinean territory and by all health facilities, both public and privately owned”, reality shows that the document lacks the status of a Ministerial resolution just like its previous iterations of 2007 and 2010, and is not accompanied by a robust strategy to make it widely known and applied by federal authorities. It was not available at the Ministry webpage during the entire month of September and it was put back online only after strong mobilization by women’s groups.Along the same lines, almost four years after the CSJN verdict mentioned above, only 9 of the country’s 24 jurisdictions have care protocols for non-punishable abortions that follow the guidelines set by the Court. Eight jurisdictions approved protocols with requirements that, rather than enabling, hinder women’s access to safe abortion services to which they are entitled, and nine others have no protocol whatsoever as yet. That is, more than half of the country’s jurisdictions still lack norms effectively guaranteeing that women can exercise a right granted to them since 1921.SOURCE: PHOTO
