Argentina has become the largest South American country to legalise abortion after its senate approved the historic law. The bill was put to congress by the country’s left-wing president Alberto Fernández and was approved by the lower house earlier this month. It legalizes abortion in the initial 14 months of pregnancy.
According to a Guardian report, Fernández said that since the return of democracy in 1983 more than 3,000 women had died as a result of unsafe, underground abortions in Argentina.
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Countries that permit abortions
Globally, 67 countries permit abortions on request including Germany, Canada, New Zealand, Belgium, Cambodia Kazakhstan, and China. Uruguay, Cuba, Guyana, and parts of Mexico currently allow women to request an abortion, with varying limits on the number of weeks of pregnancy in which an abortion is legal. The laws of as many as 56 countries permit abortion on the basis of health or therapeutic grounds including Equatorial Guinea, Egypt, Algeria, Iran, Papua New Guinea, and Peru.
Some countries consider a woman's social or economic status as a ground for abortion, India too falls under this category. Aside from this, abortions are legal to save a woman’s life, to preserve health, or if conceived by rape. Other countries that fall under the category are Japan, Barbados, Belize, Estonia, Finland.