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Pro-life protest in ArgentinaRuptly / YouTube

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, December 4, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — Thousands of pro-life Argentines in over 500 cities took to the streets on Nov. 28 in protest of a bill that would legalize elective abortion up to 14 weeks after conception.

The bill, which was initiated by President Alberto Fernández, states that “Women and those with other gender identities who are able to get pregnant have the right to decide to terminate a pregnancy within 14 weeks of gestation.”

Currently, women in Argentina can only get abortions in the case of rape, or when their life or health is in danger, in accordance with a law first passed in 1920.

Demonstrators displayed signs with messages such as “Abortion = Genocide,” “It is not lawful to kill an innocent,” and “Let’s save the two lives.”

Many sported blue neckerchiefs or masks, and waved blue banners and poster paper. In Argentina, the pro-life movement is represented by the color blue, while the color green signifies the pro-abortion movement. One sign read, “There are more of us who defend life, we are the blue majority,” according to the Catholic News Agency.

Protestors even displayed an enormous sculpture made in the likeness of an unborn baby.

“This will be the ninth time in majority-Catholic Argentina — homeland of Pope Francis — that a bill to legalize abortion has been presented in parliament,” reported Agence France-Presse.

In a video posted by the march’s organizers, Agustín Laje said that “dismissing human rights begins by dismissing the right to life.”

When asked why the Argentine people were protesting, Camila Duro of the Argentine Pro-Life Unity organization explained that the Fernández administration “wants to fast track the legalization of abortion, turning its back on the majority of the Argentine people, and so we want to express our disgust with that move,” reported ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language news partner.

“Those whom they want to kill with this law are future Argentines, compatriots, citizens of our country,” Dr. María José Mancino, president of Doctors for Life Argentina, told ACI Prensa.

Raúl Magnasco from Más Vida Argentina said that “what citizens are calling for is to respect the will of the people in face of a government that promotes the abortion agenda according to the interests or requirements of the International Monetary Fund, calling them rights or sexual and reproductive health.”

In an email to ACI Prensa, former congresswoman Cynthia Hotton said the abortion bill is intended to “divide society and distract.”

“The president is hiding the failure of the public health system, poverty and the economy behind this initiative,” she said.

“People are fed up with the lies and the political manipulation of everything: from the pandemic and the land seizures, to the farewell given to Diego Maradona. The outcome is always the same: following the incompetency, the people are the ones who suffer the most. With abortion, the same thing happens. People are tired of the green neckerchief as the panacea to all the problems of women and of society,” Hotton continued.

“The green neckerchief seems to be for Alberto Fernández the only flag left standing.”