Doctors all across Argentina are fighting against a new pro-abortion bill that could punish them for refusing to abort unborn babies.
Hundreds of doctors recently protested the legislation after it passed the lower house in June; the Argentine Senate is scheduled to debate the bill Aug. 8, CBN News reports.
Argentina prohibits unborn babies from being aborted except in cases of rape, severe disabilities or threats to the mother’s life. But lawmakers are considering a bill to legalize abortions for any reason up to 14 weeks of pregnancy.
About 300 hospitals and medical groups across the country have announced their opposition to the legislation, in part, because of a lack of conscience protections. According to the report, private hospitals would not be allowed to opt out of aborting unborn babies under the bill.
During the protest, many doctors held signs with the message, “I’m a doctor, not a murderer.” Some said they would rather go to jail than kill unborn babies in abortions.
Here’s more from the report:
Critics, like Argentina’s Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics Societies, say they’re concerned that doctors who refuse to perform abortions on moral grounds might suffer professional discrimination. In fact, objectors would have to register and they’re worried that could be used to “blacklist” them at hospitals.
“How far are we willing to go to? Jail,” said Ernesto Beruti, chief of obstetrics at the Austral University Hospital. “Even if the law is passed, I’m not going to eliminate the life of a human being. The most important right is the right to live.”
The highly respected Argentinian Academy of Medicine is fiercely opposing the legislation, issuing a statement that human life begins at conception and “to destroy a human embryo means impeding the birth of a human being.”
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“Nothing good can come when society chooses death as a solution,” the academy said.
Argentina, like many South American countries, has been facing intense international pressure to legalize abortion. Human Rights Watch, which receives funding from American billionaire George Soros, has been pushing its abortion agenda on Argentina for years, as has Amnesty International.
The South American country has faced some of the most violent pro-abortion protests in the world. In June, radical feminists marched in Buenos Aires to demand the government legalize the killing of unborn babies. In October 2017, they staged another violent, topless protest to demand taxpayer-funded abortions and cultural acceptance of prostitution. Local news reports indicate the pro-abortion protesters threw rocks, a Molotov cocktail, bottles, tampons and feces, as well as balloons filled with paint. They also vandalized walls with messages such as “Death to the pope” and “Lesbianize yourself.”
If the legislation is approved, Argentina will be the first nation to legalize abortion since a historic vote in Ireland to overturn its Eighth Amendment, which provided legal protections for unborn children. The homeland of Pope Francis would be one of the only nations in South America with legalized abortion on demand.
