Milei and the threat to legal abortion in Argentina
Mount Holyoke associate professor of politics Cora Fernandez Anderson was quoted by Vox Media about Argentinian president Javier Milei and his plans to overturn abortion rights in that country.
On November 19, 2023, Argentina elected Javier Milei as its new president. Milei, a right-wing libertarian, vowed to lift the nation out of triple-digit inflation and rising poverty by shutting the central bank and ditching the peso.
But Milei isn’t just interested in economic reforms. He has also shown interest in rolling back Argentina’s abortion rights. Specifically, Milei has expressed a desire to hold a referendum on the 2020 law, which allows abortions before 14 weeks.
Mount Holyoke College associate professor of politics Cora Fernandez Anderson co-wrote a blog post for the European Consortium for Political Research with Camilla Reuterswärd, assistant professor of political science at Uppsala University.
As quoted by Vox Media, they said, “Milei is not the first populist leader-elect to seek abortion restrictions within a broader agenda of opposing sexual and reproductive rights.”
They continued, “Sixty percent of Milei’s core constituents are men, mostly under thirty. Milei promised to eliminate the Ministry of Women, Genders and Diversity and to ban sex education in schools. He even denies that a gender gap exists.”
