Activists rally ahead of Argentina abortion vote

Hundreds of activists staged rallies in Buenos Aires for and against an abortion rights bill being debated in the Argentine Senate.

Buenos Aires: In Buenos Aires, protesters rallying respectively for and against an abortion rights bill being debated in the Argentine Senate demonstrated outside the country's legislature on Tuesday.

The fate of the decades-long fight by Argentine women's groups for legal abortion is being decided by the Senate, in a vote that could change the outlook for the procedure across a continent where it is still largely illegal.

Outside, hundreds of activists wearing green handkerchiefs shouted pro-choice slogans.

Argentina's feminist movement has been demanding legal abortion for more than 30 years and activists say the bill's approval could mark a watershed in Latin America, where the Roman Catholic Church's influence has long dominated.

Also gathered outside the legislature, a group that calls its members "defenders of the two lives" who, with Argentine flags and sky-blue handkerchiefs, prayed for the law's non-approval.

The uncertainty surrounding this vote is partly due to the fact that the political parties, including the ruling Peronist movement, have given their legislators freedom to vote as they choose.

There are 72 senators, two of whom are absent. Of the remaining 70, 43 are men.

Argentina currently penalizes women and those who help them abort.

The only exceptions are cases involving rape or a risk to the health of the mother, and activists complain even these exceptions are not respected in some provinces.

Abortion remains largely illegal in the region except for in Uruguay, Cuba, Mexico City, the Mexican state of Oaxaca, the Antilles and French Guiana.

AP