Argentine woman dies while serving 8-year sentence for abortion

An Argentine woman serving an 8-year sentence for "aggravated homicide" as a result of an abortion, died on Monday.

Patricia Solorza died of peritonitis in a public hospital in the western Buenos Aires suburb of San Martín. She had been transferred from a nearby women's prison, and reportedly died handcuffed to the bed.

Solorza, 40, was sentenced in 2013 after undergoing an abortion - which in Argentina remains illegal except in cases of rape, or due to risk to the mother's health.

She was impoverished and had already had two children - the oldest of which suffered a developmental disability due to a bout of infantile meningitis. According to her sister Luján, who had actively advocated for her freedom, Patricia was frequently beaten as a child by their father.

A public health problem

Solorza's death reignited debate over Argentina's restrictive abortion laws, which date from 1921.

Bills legalizing abortion have been debated in Argentina's Congress eight times since 1983 - most recently last year, when a bill legalizing abortion on demand up to the 14th week was passed by the Lower House on June 14 but defeated in the Senate on August 8 by 38 votes to 31.

Despite the legal hurdles, over 300,000 abortions are performed in the country annually - up to 50,000 of which result in dangerous complications, and, in 2017, in 30 deaths.

President Mauricio Macri has long opposed abortion rights.

Macri vetoed a municipal bill as mayor of Buenos Aires in 2012 that guaranteed abortion rights in cases of rape (as Argentine law currently stipulates), and reaped controversy by earmarking 121 million pesos ($4.3 million at the time) in the 2018 budget to a non-profit run by an abstinence and pro-life advocate, Dr. Abel Albino.

His right-wing "Let's Change" caucus in Congress largely voted against the 2018 bill.

Opposition candidate Alberto Fernández of the center-left Front for Everyone, himself a law professor, has long supported the decriminalization of abortion.

"Since 1983 I've been pointing out that punishing a woman for an abortion is barbarous," he told journalist Horacio Verbitsky in a May interview.

"This is a serious public health problem - not a criminal matter."

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Patricia Solorza, who died, handcuffed to a bed, of peritonitis while serving an 8-year prison sentence for an abortion.

While abortion remains illegal in Argentina except in cases of rape, or due to risks to the mother's health, over 300,000 abortions are estimated to be performed in the country annually.

The center-left Front for Everyone, whose nominee Alberto Fernández is ahead in most polls, has pledged to bring up pro-choice legislation next year should Fernández prevail in the October elections.