Argentina president denounces abortion at World Economic Forum

Argentina President Javier Milei denounced the “bloody abortion agenda” during his comments at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Wednesday.

Milei, who won the election in November and entered office in December, began his remarks by warning that “the Western world is in danger” because “those who are supposed to have to defend the values of the West are co-opted by a vision of the world that … leads to socialism and thereby to poverty.” 

After denouncing socialism and all other “collectivist” ideologies while plugging “free enterprise capitalism” as the only path to prosperity worldwide, Milei, 53, addressed the “radical feminism agenda” that has engulfed the developed world.

He condemned the idea that “we human beings damage the planet, which should be protected at all costs, even going as far as advocating for population control mechanisms or the bloody abortion agenda.”

“Unfortunately, these harmful ideas have taken a stronghold in our society,” he lamented. “Neo-Marxists have managed to co-opt the common sense of the Western world, and this they have achieved by appropriating the media, culture, universities and also international organizations.” 

After stating that “these are institutions that have enormous influence on political and economic decisions,” Milei said he is grateful that “there’s more and more of us who are daring to make our voices heard” against the ideologies he condemned in his speech.

“We see that if we don’t truly and decisively fight against these ideas, the only possible fate is for us to have increasing levels of state regulation, socialism, poverty and less freedom, and therefore, we’ll be having worse standards of living,” the Argentina leader said. 

Milei’s speech in Davos comes two months after his election. Milei, a member of the libertarian-leaning La Libertad Avanza coalition, won the Nov. 19 runoff election with 55.7% of the vote against his opponent, Sergio Massa of the left-leaning Union por la Patria coalition, who captured 44.3% of the vote. 

La Libertad Avanza secured a spot in the runoff election after taking one of the top two spots in the Oct. 22 general election. The coalition received 30% of the vote in the first round, coming in behind Massa’s Union por la Patria coalition at 36.7% while finishing ahead of all other candidates who were eliminated. 

The 2023 national electoral platform of La Libertad Avanza defined “the defense of the right to life from conception” as one of its core values. Before his electoral victory, Milei elaborated on his abortion opposition in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. 

“As a libertarian, we believe that liberalism entails the unrestricted respect for the lives of others, rooted in a principle of non-aggression, and the defense of life, liberty and property,” he said. “And if we cleave these ideas of liberty, one of the most fundamental aspects is to defend the right to life.”

He stressed that he supports the right to life “philosophically speaking” and pointed to what he said is a “scientific justification” for his position.

“It’s the fact that life begins at conception,” he added. “It’s at that very instant that a new being begins to evolve with its own unique DNA.”

“While it’s true that women have the right to their own bodies, the child in a woman’s womb is not her body. That child is not her baby,” he continued. “That makes abortion a murder, enabled and aggravated by a power imbalance against a child that has no way to defend itself.”

Milei described abortion as a “murderous agenda” rooted in extreme environmental concerns: “As a consequence of what humans are doing to the planet, they promote the murder of people still in their mother’s womb.” 

“It is a bloodthirsty policy in which some humans believe they should decide who should live and who should not,” he asserted. “It’s the utmost expression of hubris: how can a person decide who will live and who will not?” 

Abortion is legal in Argentina. In 2020, the Argentine government enacted a law permitting elective abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. Before the measure passed, women could only obtain abortions in the South American country in cases where the baby was conceived due to rape or if the mother’s life was in danger. 

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