"No place for Miranda Ruiz": in Argentina, the fight for the right to abortion continues
Abortion rights activists outside Congress in Buenos Aires hold coat hangers symbolizing illegal abortions and "Goodbye" signs after parliament passed a law legalizing abortion on Wednesday December 30, 2020. © AP Photo / Victor Caivano
Text by: Théo Conscience Follow
3 mins
It was December 30, 2020, an explosion of joy in front of Congress in Buenos Aires.
Thousands of Argentines celebrated the legalization of abortion.
Fifteen months later, attitudes and practices are slowly changing, especially in the north of the country.
In the province of Salta, the case of Miranda Ruiz, a doctor prosecuted for performing a supposedly illegal abortion, has become the symbol of the practices that continue to hinder access to abortion.
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from our correspondent in Buenos Aires,
Roll of tape in hand and green scarf around the wrist, feminist activists stick posters on the facade of the representation of the province of Salta in Buenos Aires, with this message: "No place for Miranda Ruiz"
“
Today, we are mobilized to denounce the persecutions against doctors who guarantee the right to abortion.
Unfortunately, it is not guaranteed in the same way in all the provinces and all the cities of our country
”.
Yamila Picasso, a feminist activist, refers to the lawsuits against Miranda Ruiz, a doctor in the city of Tartagal, located in the conservative and Catholic north of Argentina.
In August 2021, she performed an abortion for health reasons on a young woman who was twenty weeks pregnant.
Lawyer in Salta, Monica Menini participates in the defense of this doctor.
"
This decision was validated by an interdisciplinary team, by the head of the department, who is nevertheless a conscientious objector, and by the supervision team for reproductive and sexual health in the province of Salta
".
However, a few days after the voluntary termination of pregnancy, the girl's family filed a complaint, and the local police came to arrest Miranda Ruiz in her hospital.
She was released a few hours later thanks to the mobilization of the feminist movement, but the prosecution still continues today.
At the end of March, his request for dismissal was rejected by the local justice.
►
To read also
: in Argentina, the Congress adopts the law legalizing abortion
“
There are more than 30 testimonies in this case, and there is no evidence that indicates that the steps provided for by the protocol of the law were not respected
”.
Monica Menini also recalls that Miranda Ruiz is the only doctor in Tartagal not to be a conscientious objector, and therefore the only one to guarantee the right to abortion.
For the lawyer, the case of Miranda Ruiz is symptomatic of "
judicial relentlessness
" intended to "
intimidate
" the medical profession.
“
Over time, these lawsuits end up being dropped, but they lock doctors into legal proceedings that last for years.
This is part of the methods used to hinder the effective application of the law on abortion
”.
Doctor in the province of Buenos Aires and feminist activist,
Julieta Bazan
confirms that these legal proceedings affect health professionals when deciding whether or not to perform an abortion: "
many health professionals are afraid of these punitive methods inflicted on those who perform abortions.
And
that is the objective: to scare so that doctors give up guaranteeing this right.
The young doctor also denounces the reluctance of part of the medical profession to guarantee the right to abortion.
“
This translates in several ways.
They put up obstacles, such as delaying appointments.
Another method consists of increasing obstetrical violence, by performing abortions without anesthesia.
These are doctors who do not declare themselves to be conscientious objectors, therefore on whom we think we can count, and who set up this kind of practice
”.
If these practices remain largely in the minority at the national level, they testify to the fact that the fight for the right to abortion in Argentina did not end with the legalization of abortion.
►
Also to listen
: Abortion law in Argentina: "a divisive subject but mobilizations of an unprecedented scale"
Demonstrators in favor of the legalization of abortion in Argentina, facing Congress, December 29, 2020. AFP - RONALDO SCHEMIDT
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