Clorrie Yeomans, Third Year MLAC Student, College of Saint Hild and Saint Bede 

The Run-Up to the Abortion Debate

The abortion debate in Argentina is an earthquake that splits the land in two. The ground shudders during five months of campaigning in the streets filled with crowds of campaigners wearing emerald bandanas and make-up to symbolise the pro-choice movement. Their principal argument is that criminalising the issue of abortion does not make it go away. In fact, the issue is far from being unimportant, considering that up to an estimated 500,000 clandestine abortions are performed every year in Argentina. Women are criminalised for taking ‘misoprostol’: a drug originally intended to treat stomach ulcers. However, the metal coat hangers in the activists’ hands are a sickly reminder of the even more traumatic alternative for many women, mainly living in rural or deprived areas. Unsurprisingly, these dangerous illegal abortions are the country’s leading cause of maternal deaths. The pro-lifers are also chanting in the streets; dressed in blue. Their fundamental pillar of support is the Catholic Church; whose power has been reinforced since the beginning of the Argentine Pope Francis’ papacy in 2013. 


The entire nation waits in suspense on 8th August 2018, as the Senate deliberates for over 16 hours. This would be the final hurdle for abortion to be legalised after it had already been passed by the Chamber of Deputies, the Argentinean equivalent of the House of Commons. The proposed bill would endow every woman with the choice as to whether to continue or terminate her pregnancy during the first 14 weeks. This is a substantial improvement in comparison to the current law which only allows terminations in cases of rape or when the expectant mother’s physical health is at risk. This would be a historic moment for Argentina and for Latin America, where over 97% of women live under restrictive abortion laws. Then, the wave hits and the ground shudders: the Senate rejects the abortion bill by 38 votes to 31. In the streets, there are endless tears of disappointment and anger, as well as happiness and relief.

Natalie Cave, a Third Year Spanish student who was in Buenos Aires on her Year Abroad, reflects on the historic event: 

Being right in the centre of an Argentine protest was quite the experience. I didn’t really know what to expect as I’ve never been involved in a protest in England before, let alone in Latin America where protests are known to be violent. However, I was pleasantly surprised at the abortion protests. The streets were full of singing, dancing, food stalls and music. Everywhere around me I could see both men and women chanting and waving green bandanas (a symbol for pro-choice supporters) in the air. What really stood out was their passion and solidarity in their protest. 

The Wider Causes and Effects 

Reflecting on Natalie’s response, it is clear that the abortion debate stood for so much more than just a change to the law. The campaign was undoubtedly intertwined with the revitalisation of the feminist movement in Argentina, as well as throughout the continent. It could be said that the abortion debate triggered the feminist movement to become more concrete. At the vanguard of the debate, the ‘#NiUnaMenos’ (‘Not one [woman] less’) campaign surged over social media in response to a series of femicides, including that of 14 year-old Chiara Páez who was beaten to death by her 16-year-old boyfriend when she was 
8-weeks pregnant. This triggered women to bring their issues out of the home and into the streets with their heads held high. A space has been forged in which to confront male chauvinism; one of the underlying causes of femicides, violence against women, and poverty throughout the continent. From this point forward, politicians in Argentina and beyond can no longer bury their heads in the sand when confronted with women’s issues. It is true that the abortion debate is not an isolated issue and it has continued to have an amplified ongoing impact, despite the law being rejected. The debate must be situated within a wider dialogue which The New York Times refers to as a ‘broader cultural struggle’. Curious as to what this means, I began to contact members of both sides of the debate, starting with a Skype interview with 24-year-old Franco Teves from Mendoza (the fourth largest city in Argentina):

Hello, Franco, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today. Could you briefly introduce yourself to our readers, please? 

Franco: Hi, it’s a pleasure. My name is Franco Teves and I am a political researcher in the Senate of Mendoza, Argentina. As part of my work, I was involved in the pro-choice campaign. 

So, what were the main arguments of the pro-choice campaign? 

Franco: We believe that universal access to safe and legal abortion is necessary because the contraceptive pill is not 100% effective and many people are allergic to condoms. It is hard to say that bringing a new life into the world is something negative but this kind of mistake can really destroy your future. In Latin America, this is a reality because it is the woman who takes care of the child. When young women get pregnant in Latin America, they are often still in education. They are marginalised from society as they can never return to school and if they lack support from their families, they will forever struggle financially. Also, as a matter of fact, many women die from unsafe illegal abortions. Normal terminations are not 100% safe but women would feel a lot more at ease if they had access to a regulated service with specially trained doctors. It is important that we make people aware of this; we must take care of these young girls. 

So, what was your personal involvement in the campaign? 

Franco: I went to schools, along with other campaigners, to discuss the need for the law… 

… But isn’t it wrong to influence school children politically? 

Franco: We don’t say that this is a political motive: this is a human need. 

President Mauricio Macri’s decision to not veto a law to allow more open abortion, despite being a pro-life advocate himself, has been interpreted by many sceptics as a premeditated way of distracting Argentinians from the country’s ongoing economic problems. What do you think about this? 

Franco: This is definitely not true as the abortion campaign began many years prior to the economic deterioration. This year seemed to be the perfect time to vote because the country had become more open and it was more likely to be successful.

What would have been the secondary effects of the law? 

Franco: The legalisation of abortion would have led to a more open society with better sex education which would prevent abortion from being needed in the first place. 

So, is abortion really the solution to the issue, or what Argentina really needs is better sex education? 

Franco: I don’t believe that abortion is the absolute solution to the root cause of the issue. However, by introducing it, people will become more open-minded and will feel more comfortable about speaking out about the issues of unwanted pregnancies and unsafe sex in public. This would lead to sex education being more widely taught in schools. 

Would you consider Argentina to be a ‘developed’, ‘forward-thinking’ country then? 

Franco: Argentina is a very open-minded and developed country. In fact, in some aspects, we are similar to countries which are considered to be developed. Many advances have taken place in London before coming to Buenos Aires only a few years later. There is a broad acceptance of gay rights and women’s rights and after the next elections, 50% of the Parliament will be made up of women. However, we cannot be an open-minded country until the abortion bill is passed.

Thank you very much, Franco, for taking the time to speak to me today.

Questioning Western Media Coverage 

Charles Camosy, Associate Professor of Theological and Social Ethics at Fordham University, has conducted a plethora of thought-provoking research into the abortion debate including his book Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation. His article, The abortion debate in Argentina vs. Ireland: what made the difference? compares Argentina to Ireland, where abortion was legalised in 2018. The article primarily critiques Western media coverage of national abortion debates. For instance, Camosy argues that the case of Chiara Páez, the pregnant teen who was tragically killed, was skewed in order to support the pro-choice campaign. Páez’s pregnancy might have triggered her partner’s violence but his temperament would have possibly manifested itself anyway in an alternative situation further down the line. Legal abortion could have maybe prevented this isolated case of violence. However, it would not have attacked the root cause, or rather the misogyny which is notoriously perpetuated in Latin American culture. All women are threatened by this, and particularly young pregnant women who fall into a downward spiral of dependency and vulnerability. The Western media coverage which I came across tended to oversimplify the debate by inferring that Argentine women, except for those who were deeply religious, universally supported abortion. On the contrary, Camosy observes that a considerable number of female Senators opposed the bill. For example, Senator Silvina Garcia Larraburu considered the abortion debate as a smoke-screen for the country’s economic problems and as an insufficient measure to resolve the wider issue of gender crime. 

The conclusion to Camosy’s argument is that the largely generalised and biased Western media coverage in support of the pro-choice campaign in Argentina represents ‘a classic example of neocolonial imperialism into a culture with a very different understanding of the good’. After reading this nuanced conclusion, I decided to personally contact Professor Charles Camosy to ask him to further elaborate on this argument: 

Do you believe that western media coverage has used the abortion debate as a way of demonstrating neo-imperialist attitudes? Has western media depicted Argentina as a backwards country? 

Charles: 'Indeed I do. Such media, not least because of its partisan bent, simply assumes that abortion rights should be accepted by all societies which care about human rights--and then uses that assumption to describe a country like Argentina (which advocates for the human rights of both the mother and the child) as regressive, based and beholden to religious authority given their refusal to yield to the orthodoxy of the developed West. But that neocolonial posture is not only morally wrong--it is, frankly, silly given, for instance, Argentina's clear progressive history with LGBT rights. There is nothing progressive about appealing to Western-style individual autonomy in ways which make the unwanted vulnerable invisible. Argentina is rightly wrestling with the complex legal and social situation in which both mother and prenatal child are treated as the people they are. Countries like Chile and Ireland--which have had far better health outcomes for women than their abortion-friendly neighbours--prove that a morally serious country need not choose between the vulnerable pregnant woman and the vulnerable prenatal child. Argentina is to be lauded for having a more expansive view of human rights--especially when compared to developed Western countries which proceed as if the massive and horrific violence faced by prenatal children ought to be ignored.'

Reflecting on the Western media coverage to which I had already been exposed, I personally found Camosy’s argument very convincing. For example, the ‘Dispatches’ video by the New York Times describes Argentina as ‘overwhelmingly catholic and conservative’ and infers that the Catholic Church continues to be the puppeteer commanding society and the government in Argentina. The video focuses on the fact that the colour of the pro-life movement is blue; the same as the national flag. This polarizes the ‘Argentinean’ pro-lifers in blue and the green pro-choice activists who are supposedly importing a movement from the outside world: feminism (of which the West likes to try to take ownership). 

Camosy’s observation that the debate was a key moment for Argentina in asserting and projecting her own national identity is very convincing. Despite being known as one of the most European nations in Latin America, Argentina is also starkly different to European countries, as the abortion debate has proven. Indeed, for us outsiders in the West, it is incomprehensible how extensive gay rights coexist alongside strict abortion laws in one, united country. That is to say that Argentina refuses to force herself to fit into the mould of Western dichotomies, favouring instead a rich and multifaceted national identity. 

Concluding Remarks 

To conclude, the purpose of this article was not to convince you to support either side of the abortion debate. Instead, I hope to have led you to consider if it is a good idea to continue to universally implement Western ideologies of feminism and human rights in other nations, without adapting them to their own culture and economy. In a country apparently offering limited sex education, would abortion replace contraception? Does Argentina have sufficient revenue to set up safe abortion clinics for all? Does one have to support abortion in order to be feminist and progressive? 

Most importantly, should the West be allowed to dictate what is morally right and wrong throughout the world? 

The Definite Article would like to thank Natalie Cave, Franco Teves and Professor Charles Camosy for contributing to the article.

Irini Picolou

Race has no scientific foundation, as proved by the emergence of Social Darwinism and the existence of later theories in 1911. However, despite the challenges that science imposed to the subjective belief in the plurality of races existent in mankind, heinous racial discourse, activity and genocidal regimes such as that of Nazi Germany, continued to prevail. Is history repeating itself? It might be worth looking into the dubious case of Treasure Richards, an 16 year old African American teenager who identifies herself as Caucasian and white, ‘with a body like Kim Kardashian’.

Poising on the chair on Dr. Phil’s studio, Treasure becomes the performative object of ridicule and comedic entertainment. Her views are underscored by the media, characterising her as a racist villain who does not deserve a supporting and loving family. Ultimately, her racist identity has created her into a problem for society, but also a necessary form of entertainment for the public.
Personally, I condone this treatment towards her. It is understandable, on the one hand, that there would be a profound expression of disgust in her public reception. On the other hand, however, not a ‘racist sympathiser’ myself, it is important to delve into the potential sociological and environmental implications that this case inaugurates.

Her mother told her she was not an African American, something that was criticized in a show hosted by an African American psychologist. This is not the pinnacle of the blame that should prevail, however, it does create a veritable confusion in one’s identity as well as a discursive confirmation of a desirable self-identification. I am not going to make assumptions about this individual and insist she has some sort of mental disorder, but objectively speaking, how far should we go about shaming her views in public on a global spectacle?

It is, without doubt, important to prevent the spread of extremist ideas and to show one that it is wrong. However, the extent to which this girl has been publicly shamed for her factual distortion within her self-identification could be considered counterproductive. We could make the argument that it gives her, in a way, more agency to inflate her egotistical form of expressing her outlandish ideas, or if we make presumptions about her emotional hidden state, it may reinforce her ‘self-hating’ if this is the case already. It is important to consider where these ideas came from since the renowned scholar who wrote the Oxford very short introduction on race, Ali Rattansi, considers racist beliefs not to be ‘natural’ as such. So where did these emerge from?

Without pointing the finger at solely one factor i.e. her mother’s role in reinforcing the distortion of her daughter’s self-perception, it is important to bear on the wider contexts of racism and self-identification, as well as the legitimacy of discursive agency in order to understand where these heinous-sounding ideas originate from. In other words, it is crucial to understand what constitutes our understanding of difference, why this girl views African-Americanism as a platform of difference and to what extent she truly self-identifies as Caucasian. It is thus necessary to delve deeper into these issues of self-identification and fear of difference by trying to perceive what shapes her view of difference, what role society plays in her apparent distortion or why she is afraid of being ‘different’, if profound studies show that to be the case. It is crucial to examine her true intentions through survey and academic study, instead of public shaming and to test environmental theories before publicising such statements and assumptions in the media.

Of course, it is not an immediate instinct to view this from an academic lens, because it is categorised as a form of entertainment and perhaps what we would call ‘television trash’. However, it is important to take a sociological standpoint on the issue which may help us to decipher the origins of extremism in groups such as the 

With a longstanding history of the Jews being oppressed in the 1492 expulsion of Late Medieval Spain, the Eurocentric Christian attitudes associating Jews with filth and disease during the years of the plague to the Modern terror of the Holocaust, there is surely much to say on the historical front of Anti-Semitism. However, recently there has been an erroneous conflation of Anti-Zionism with Anti-Semitism, which is the danger in the arguments of Israeli supporters in the world-famous conflict violently encountered with the Palestinians.
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Let us first examine the etymological origins of the two words to demarcate where the confusion may lie. Objectively speaking, when you type ‘Zionism’ into Google, the first definition which appears reads ‘a movement for (originally) the re-establishment and (now) the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel’. Anti-Zionism is thus a political movement denouncing the promotion of the settlement of Jews in Israel. Surely, the danger can lie in manipulating the wording as ‘Anti-protection,’ thus making it seem that there are Anti-Semitic beliefs involved with this political movement. Anti-Semitism, on the other hand, is predominantly a racial movement, and the two do not necessarily intertwine depending on the context due to the fact they refer to separate concepts, let alone are synonymous with one another. If we phrase it as such, we are taking it out of the current political context in which it is being used and have to face the negative implications of conflating the two terms.

It is important to remember that Palestine was previously a British colony before Britain allowed Israeli rule to dominate the Palestinian nation on the grounds of religious justification, claiming it was a promised land to which they now want to return. If I disassociate my own personal views from the matter, which may or may not be Pro-Israeli in the case of the conflict, Zionism is thus a justification for Jewish settlement in Palestine. Granted the justification was morally and ethically right or wrong in its political and biblical context, it is important to remember that the conflict has equally led to the slaughter of a nation, almost as what we could term as a present-day genocide. So effectively, Zionism is being utilised to justify the oppressive actions of the Israeli population towards the Palestinians, and labeling this threatening settlement to Palestinians is ‘Anti-Semitism?’

I would not be writing this article if there was a somewhat peaceful cohabitation existing in certain areas of Palestine or even a political compromise between the two countries. I have friends who have lost cousins in Palestine in bloody gun episodes with the intervention of Israeli soldiers. While I do not actually overtly oppose Jewish settlement within a certain country or even dare to question governmental choice based on Biblical and legal terms to grant Palestine to the Jewish nation, my stance being limited and thus neutral until I read more on the matter, I certainly do oppose terming Anti-Zionism as Anti-Semitism within this specific political context which indirectly serves as a justification for the murder, oppression and hatred towards the Palestinian people.
 

Irini Picolou

Set the scene: a blue 1960s bus precariously hanging off the edge of the road in the Italian Alps. One tilt in the wrong direction and the bus will plunge down into the valley in a spectacular crash. The only positive outcome is survival.

Of course, this is the final scene of the Italian Job, a must watch (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZCaSyid4m0). This Michael Cane classic encapsulates the predicament of the 3rd largest Eurozone economy. Teetering on the edge of collapse with survival as the only tangible route out. We must question how Italy has got itself into this mess and how it could find a solution.
Long term trends of high debt, an ageing population, deindustrialisation and fragmentation between the growing north and declining South highlight the fractured nature of Italy. Though somewhat surprising to outsiders, the formation of an Italian coalition government in May 2018 led by the Five Star Movement is the epitome of the divisions in Italy.

But is it Italy’s fault that the country is on the edge of collapse? The answer is multifaceted and depends completely on who you talk to.

The levels of debt to GDP per capita in Italy are the highest in Europe (excluding our Greek maverick Stravos whose debt has been restructured). Why is this bad though? Japan has had the highest debt to GDP ratio in the world for the last ten years, but it is not complaining about debt, disfunction or degradation. This debt burden is so heavy on Italy, as the Italian economy is tied to the Eurozone. The outperformance of other Eurozone nations such as Germany and France have stressed a weak economy in Italy (and notably other Mediterranean countries, e.g. Greece). Is there a solution to this? For Italy, it needs to either restructure its debt or untie itself for the Eurozone to let the internal strains balance. The possible return to the Italian Lira as its currency would allow turbulent devaluing which the country needs to rebalance the economy. Economically sound, politically disastrous. The Five Start Movement is a populist party so the idea of putting your nation to the sword is rather unpopular, even if it may be a solution.

Chronic underinvestment, especially in the South and public services, has led to unemployment and underemployment, with the unemployment rate at 9.7% (has been pretty constant for the past 6 years) and youth unemployment recovering from 2014 highs of 43% to a current 31% (hardly happy reading). Hence, ending unemployment, ending poverty and improving public services are major political issues in Italy. In the Five Star Movement’s budget to the EU commission, it highlights that increases in spending would help repair these issues. These are fair grievances for the Italian people and, whilst economically dubious, political and social necessities for a functioning state. In the 8th largest economy in the world, on 27th October, 8000 protestors gathered in Rome to complain about the lack of rubbish removal. Other cities such as Naples have gained a reputation for having no dustbin men with the city full of rubbish. Underinvestment has taken a nastier tone in the South, which has become a haven for criminal activity with 80% of Europe’s cocaine traffic flowing through the south of the country. (Another must watch is Simon Reeves’ Mediterranean which highlights this in scary detail). This is the Italy that the Five Star Movement is fighting to improve.

The European commission wants debt managed, to avoid contagion of Italian risk to the remaining parts of the Eurozone. The Italian government wants to appease the anger of its people and increase spending in basic areas of the economy. For the European Commission, Italy is a fiasco with potential risk to cause serious damage to the Eurozone, especially at the height of the Brexit negotiations. For Italy, this is a fair fiscal fight for a country on the verge of collapse.

Hence on 23rd October, the EU commission rejected the Italian budget in an unprecedented move, which highlighted the deepening rifts between the European Commission and the Italian government. Italian leaders said the government would “not give up” on its plans. “We know that, if we were to surrender, we would quickly return to the pro-bank and pro-austerity ‘experts’,” Luigi Di Maio, deputy prime minister and leader of the Five Star Movement, wrote on Facebook. “And so we will not give up. We know that we are on the right track. And so we will not stop.”

Luigi couldn’t have expressed his government’s view better. The explosion of the Italian 10Y bonds to 3.45% from around 2.7% in the last month also couldn’t explain European Commission President Juncker’s position better.
So will the Italian bus fall of the edge? Either way, the story will not have a happy ending.

Written by Benjamin Hughes