Abortion has been legal in Argentina for two years, but there are pro-life groups that do everything possible to hinder access to that right. The latest case that has come to light involves a 12-year-old girl who wanted an abortion after being raped by her father. She was located Tuesday at the headquarters of the pro-life organization Gravida after an intense search that began when she did not go to the hospital where she had an appointment to terminate her pregnancy. Feminist organizations demand that the Justice investigate whether the minor was retained against her will to prevent her from having an abortion and what happened during the hours in which she remained missing. It is the second time that this group has been denounced in the province of Santa Fe for trying to prevent access to a voluntary termination of pregnancy.
The case dates back to December 19, when the girl’s mother took her to a medical consultation at a health center in Garibaldi, a rural town located 122 kilometers from the provincial capital, Santa Fe. There they confirmed that the minor she was pregnant and she revealed to him that she had been sexually abused by her father.
The man, identified by the initials GMA, is 42 years old and was arrested last Monday after more than a week on the run. The prosecutor’s office will request his preventive detention after having accused him of the crime of sexual abuse with carnal access.
While the police were looking for the accused father, the girl and the mother were accompanied by the provincial health services. “I don’t want to have it,” the minor responded to the doctors when they informed her of her pregnancy. With the support of her mother, the minor asked for an abortion and was given an appointment for January 2 at the Iturraspe hospital in Santa Fe, but she did not appear. At that time, she began a search that took more than 24 hours to produce results. They found her in the “Casa Hermanas de Betania”, one of the headquarters of the Gravida organization.
After what happened, the Secretariat for Children, Adolescents and the Family of Santa Fe ordered a transitory “exceptional protection measure” to protect the girl, “guarantee her rights and listen to her voice as a subject of rights like all girls, boys and adolescents”, according to an official statement.
The prosecutor in charge of the case, Alejandra del Rio Ayala, reported that the circumstances in which the little girl and her mother were captured by this Catholic NGO are under investigation to prevent the minor from accessing the legal termination of the pregnancy. Until now it is known that shortly before losing contact with the health personnel who accompanied them, they participated in a mass to which they had been invited.
“Today the girl is fine and in good health,” says Mariangeles Guerrero, a Santa Fe member of the National Campaign for the Right to Abortion group. “But we want to know in what conditions they had it and what happened because we could be facing a crime of unlawful deprivation of liberty and threats to a minor,” she denounces. “We also want to investigate the political and economic ties of Gravida, who is banking the possible kidnapping of a girl,” adds Guerrero.
From Gravida they informed EL PAIS that the case is in the hands of their lawyers and that for the moment they are not going to make statements about it.
This organization was already denounced in 2016 for another attempt to prevent a legal abortion in Santa Fe. At that time, the legislation allowed it only in cases of rape and risk to the health of the pregnant woman. A psychologist from Gravida posed as a member of the province’s Children’s Secretariat to gain the trust of the girl who wanted to terminate the pregnancy and her mother. The professional was sanctioned by the College of Psychologists.
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