Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy in Argentina: Social Discourses in Current Government Bills

Abstract

Objective: to identify and describe the uses of language and signifiers in government bills on abortion that currently have parliamentary status in Argentina as an expression of political processes and social discourses circulating around them, and to put into cultural and historical perspective the debate on criminalization/decriminalization of abortion.

Methodology: government bills introduced in both houses of Congress were examined from a documentary analysis technique. This analysis was done with grids that helped in the identification of the occurrence of certain signifiers. Each document was individually revised from a socio-historical perspective. Finally, they were classified into the following categories: expansion progressive, moderate progressive and restrictive. 

Results: restrictive projects, from the naturalization of the use of certain signifiers and the appeal to legal language, reproduce and consolidate an array of thought that conceives and naturalizes women as mothers. Projects (progressive) looking to get out of this matrix, considering motherhood as an option, find it more difficult to sustain their arguments.

Conclusions: language, in this case through legislation, is an effective instrument for modeling and controlling women's bodies. The macro position on abortion and reproductive autonomy of women lie behind the use of certain signifiers.