(The Lion) Abortions are legal in Argentina but down significantly as President Javier Milei’s administration has taken steps to limit the availability of abortion services since taking office in December 2023.
Milei campaigned as a staunch opponent of abortion and pledged to defend unborn life after Argentina legalized it in 2020 in a narrow congressional vote. While his administration has not repealed the law, it has taken administrative actions reducing abortion access nationwide.
During the 2023 campaign, Milei described abortion in blunt moral terms.
“It is true that women have the right to their own bodies,” Milei said in an interview at the time. “But the child in a woman’s body is not her body. That child is not her body. That makes abortion a murder, enabled and aggravated by a power imbalance against a child that has no way to defend itself. Beyond that, there is a matter of mathematics. Life is a continuum with two quantum leaps – birth and death. Any interruption in the interim is murder.”
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Early in his presidency, Milei’s party introduced legislation to repeal the abortion law. The proposal would have re-criminalized abortion for both doctors and pregnant women. After public backlash, his administration withdrew the measure.
Instead, Milei’s administration acted through federal agencies. The government halted the national distribution of abortion pills, canceling plans to distribute more than 100,000 doses to provinces. The distribution level was reduced to zero, according to LifeSiteNews.
The administration also eliminated the Ministry of Women, Genders and Diversity. It also froze federal training and technical assistance tied to abortion services. These decisions shifted responsibility for abortion supplies to provincial governments.
The federal Ministry of Health stopped distributing pregnancy tests and abortion drugs in early 2024. Provinces then started obtaining abortion supplies independently, losing discounts from national bulk purchasing.
By late 2024, abortion drug shortages existed across much of the country. Amnesty International said half of Argentina’s provinces faced shortages of misoprostol and nearly all had run out of mifepristone and combination abortion drug packs.
Amnesty International also argued “barriers to access abortion nearly tripled in 2024” compared to the previous year.
Abortion advocacy groups say the number of abortions in Argentina dropped from about 107,500 in 2023 to 79,186 in 2024.
Milei’s political position strengthened after his party won key legislative races last October. Several evangelical Christians were elected, including Sen. Nadia Marquez, who has pledged to repeal the abortion law and has called abortion “the largest genocide in history.”
Milei’s term runs through the end of next year.
Editor's note: This article was published by Thr Lion and is reprinted with permission.
