The Guardian
Claudia Pineiro
Opinion
Argentina
In my country, even rights enshrined in the constitution are being crushed in the name of God
Lucía is not called Lucía. Her name is the only fiction in this spine-chilling true story. But we must call her Lucía to protect her identity.
Lucía is 11 years old. Four years ago, a court in Argentina placed Lucía in her grandmother’s care after her mother’s boyfriend reportedly abused her two older sisters. However, Lucía was not safe at her grandmother’s home either: she was raped by her grandmother’s boyfriend and became pregnant.
“I want you to remove what the old man put inside me,” said the girl, who does not fully comprehend what happened to her. While the government of Tucumán province, where Lucía lives, deliberately delayed the abortion to which she was entitled by law, Lucía embraced her mother and her dolls.
Why did the government delay the abortion? Because in Argentina there are those who believe they can impose their religious ideas on the rest of the population. And if to impose them they must break the law, they will do so. And if they have to torture a girl as well, they will also do that.
For them, the law of their God is above the country’s highest law. Argentina’s constitution says that our state is secular. However, day after day, we see how our rights are curtailed and even annulled by religious ideas imposed on the entire population by an authoritarian and dogmatic group that believes itself to be the owner of the truth. That’s how dangerous things have become in Argentina.
Girl, 11, gives birth to child of rapist after Argentina says no to abortion
The hashtag #niñasnomadres (#girlsnotmothers) is being used on social media to make situations like Lucía’s visible. There are many Lucías in my country. In 2017 (according to the latest available data from the Health Statistics and Information Office), 2,493 babies were born to girls under the age of 15.
Sometimes pregnant girls decide to go ahead with their pregnancies and, if their health is not at risk, they can do so. Other girls approach health centres to request a termination and are received by professionals who comply with the law. But more and more often, anti-rights groups meddle in private matters and manage to prevent the requested legal abortion. In most cases, they do so by forcing pregnant girls or their families to go to court to obtain a permission that should have already been granted by law.
According to the current abortion law, passed in 1921, abortions are legal in Argentina only in the case of rape or risk to the woman’s life. A woman who seeks to end her pregnancy without these reasons will have to seek help outside the health system, through a clandestine abortion – with all the consequent risk to her life and health. The sentence for undergoing such a procedure is one to four years in prison.
But Lucía did have the right to a legal abortion for the two reasons stipulated in law: rape and risk to her life. Weighing under 50kg, she was not likely to survive carrying her pregnancy to term. The girl had entered the health system only 16 weeks into her pregnancy. The matter should have been resolved as soon as possible, but the provincial government delayed the procedure. Last Tuesday, after 23 weeks, she had a caesarean section.
If there was any doubt about its intentions, the government of Tucumán made clear its illegal manoeuvre by issuing a statement instructing doctors to “save both lives” – those of Lucía and of her unborn foetus.
At the same time, the archbishop of Tucumán, Carlos Sánchez, recorded an audio address that went viral, revealing Lucía’s real name – something strictly prohibited – and calling on his followers to not only pray but also to be “custodians” of the foetus resulting from her rape.
Latin America’s fight to legalise abortion: the key battlegrounds
The faithful took the archbishop’s request seriously, and anti-rights groups held “vigils” in front of the hospital. Tucumán’s health secretary, Gustavo Vigliocco, lied publicly about the girl’s weight to make everyone believe that her life was not at risk.
Between all of them, they made Lucía give birth. They forced an 11-year-old girl, against her will, to have a baby. They are convinced that women are procreation machines; they endorse slavery in the 21st century.
Perverse officials, perverse priests, perverse worshippers. If there is a God – a God of whatever religion – surely that God will not forgive them for what they did. If there is a God, that God will also use the hashtag #niñasnomadres (#girlsnotmothers).
• Claudia Piñeiro is an Argentinian novelist and screenwriter
International Answer 