A judge has suspended Argentina’s recent abortion law as it violates the country’s commitment to upholding the right to life.
Judge Alfredo Eugenio López, president of Federal Tribunal No.4 of Mar del Plata, determined that it contradicts a previous Supreme Court ruling stating that “life is the first human right which is recognized and guaranteed by the national constitution”.
Application of the abortion law, which was passed in December, has been suspended until the Supreme Court rules on it. The law expands abortion beyond the previous exemptions for rape or when the mother’s life is at risk.
Unborn
The judgment was the result of a citizen’s appeal which argued that the law violated Argentina’s commitment to protect the “right to life from conception”.
Judge López said his decision was necessary because “an imponderable number of unborn children may suffer death from this very moment”.
life is the first human right which is recognized and guaranteed by the national constitution
Members of Argentina’s governing party, which pushed through the law, said they will appeal.
In March, a provincial judge determined the law to be unconstitutional in a ruling applying to Argentina’s San Luis province.
March for life
In May 2018, a reported 3.6 million pro-lifers in over 100 cities in Argentina marched under the slogan ‘protect them both’.
It was the country’s second mass demonstration in a matter of months calling on its political leaders not to liberalise abortion law.
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