It also comes as the United States has been moving in the opposite direction, with abortion restrictions multiplying across the country, and the U.S.
The court’s decision decriminalizes abortions in the first 24 weeks of pregnancy, and means that any woman should be able to seek the procedure from a health professional without fear of criminal prosecution.
Soon, abortion rights supporters across the region, from Mexico to Paraguay, Brazil to Colombia, were wearing or brandishing green handkerchiefs — the symbol of Argentina’s abortion rights movement — to show their solidarity with women’s sexual and reproductive rights.
In some cases, the coalition said, the existence of the criminal penalty led health professionals to deny the procedure to women who qualified for it.
“These barriers affect mainly women living in rural and remote areas, low-income women, adolescent girls, women and girls living in situations of armed conflict and victims of gender violence, including physical and sexual violence,” representatives of Causa Justa wrote in a summary of their petition.
Women in the crowd danced with green handkerchiefs over their head as the news moved through the crowd, prompting Jonathan Silva, 32, to walk away angrily.
Until now, abortions had been legal only in limited circumstances, laid out by a 2006 Constitutional Court decision: when a woman’s health was at risk, when a fetus had serious health problems or when a pregnancy resulted from rape.
“These struggles are connected,” said Serra Sippel, the chief global advocacy officer at Fos Feminista, an alliance of reproductive rights groups that works around the world, including in the United States.