Identity and rights: the limits in the demand and legislation of the Law on the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy

Abstract

In December 2020, in the midst of the health emergency resulting from COVID-19, Law No. 27,610, which guarantees the right to decide and access to voluntary termination of pregnancy up to the fourteenth week (inclusive) of the gestational process, was enacted in Argentina. From a position in favor of the legalization of abortion, this article aims to point out the enunciative and argumentative limits present in the demand and in the letter of the Law. To this end, we use the methodology of a theoretical article, taking as a fundamental antecedent the work of Blas Radi, placing this article in the paradigm of Reproductive Justice. This framework, together with other theoretical contributions, allows us to analyze the theoretical and practical limits of the right to abortion as expressed in the slogans and arguments put forward during the debate and in the text of the Law. Through this analysis, we suggest that the legalization of abortion per se does not produce the reorganization of the social order necessary to guarantee that all people with the capacity to bear children have access to the formally recognized right. Therefore, we conclude that, despite the recognition of the right to the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy, people with the capacity to bear children under unequal conditions can easily be eclipsed by the sunny formulations of “progress” that in fact only defends and guarantees the freedom and equality of some.