argentina's senate has voted to legalize abortion in a landmark ruling that could have repercussions across latin america the vote followed hours of debate and decades of campaigning by women's rights groups in the predominantly catholic country up until now seeking or aiding an abortion was a punishable offense the vote in argentina has been closely watched in other latin american countries where abortion is largely still illegal well for more on this i'm joined now by journalist lucia hey in buenos aires uh first of all this is a historic moment for argentina and latin american in general how
are the reactions to this development yes so there were thousands of people waiting on the street until 4am when the vote was cast waiting for the decision and basically the most amount of people were waiting in front of the national congress in buenos aires and the plaza was divided in two so basically the people in favor of the legalization of abortion and those against and as you can imagine the people in favor as soon as they heard of the vote of the results of the voting they were ecstatic there was a lot of music a
lot of young women who came out to the streets in support of this bill and there was a very much of a celebratory mood among that side but as you can imagine on the other side of the plaza the mood was completely the opposite these are groups that are very religious and groups that have been very vocally against the legalization of abortion so the mood was very divided and i think that really reflects how argentina as a society as a whole feels today about the results of this historic vote important is this vote for argentina
can you put it in context for us absolutely so to give you an idea this is the ninth time a bill to legalize abortion was presented in congress over the past 15 years so it's an issue that's been on the agenda for many many years and that in the most recent years since 2018 i would say has taken a lot of attention not only in argentina but also other countries in latin america have appropriated themselves of this green scarf that the argentine feminist movement uses as a message to legalize abortion you see that green scarf
all over latin america now so it is a huge issue and um the reason why it is so is because since 1921 abortion in argentina has been criminalized and women and doctors who perform it can get up to 15 years in prison so one of the things that these women's rights movements have been saying is that in spite of this women still undergo abortions there's an unofficial estimate that around 370 000 to 500 000 abortions are performed every year in the country so by legalizing this uh women's rights groups are saying that at least you're
securing healthy and safe conditions for this woman to undergo these procedures that was journalist lucia hey reporting from buenos aires you
