According to a Facebook post by the
Argentine Council for Religious Freedom on 1 December 2020,‚ groups supporting abortion had made various attacks on the Catholic Cathedral of Moreno and the Evangelical Christian Church in Cƒ³rdoba in previous weeks.
According to
La Naciƒ³n reporting on 28 November 2020, the walls of the Roman Catholic cathedral in Merlo-Moreno were daubed with green paint just hours before church groups gathered for a protest march against the legalization of abortion. Green is the chosen color of the movement supporting abortion. Church staff confirmed that this sort of intimidation had occurred on previous occasions.
Rossana Ramirez, persecution analyst at World Watch Research (WWR), explains: "After intense legislative debate, on 30 December 2020 the Senate
approved (by 38 votes to 29) the legalization of abortion up to 14 weeks of gestation (BBC News, 30 December 2020). During the Senate discussion, the Church was
clearly identified as being the main obstacle to the legalization of abortion (El Espectador, 28 December 2020). The attacks on Christian places of worship are basically a politically motivated rejection of the Christian understanding of the sanctity of life."
Rossana Ramirez continues: "Medical staff refusing to carry out an abortion are obliged to cooperate with the referral of the mother to another medical center which will carry out the abortion. Health professionals who represent an "˜obstacle" to the practice of abortion can be fined, disqualified or even given a prison-sentence (
La Naciƒ³n, 31 December 2020). Thus, a Christian professional"s right to conscientious objection is highly restricted and makes its effective exercise very difficult."
Rossana Ramirez adds: "There were further church attacks carried out, but some were not part of the violence surrounding the debate on abortion. News magazine Infobae, for instance, reported on 6 November 2020 that a
Mapuche group of about 12 men broke into a Catholic church in El Bagson and assaulted the priest there. They held him and another member of the congregation captive while they vandalized parts of the interior and hung a blood-stained Argentine flag in one of the church windows. This was an act of protest against legal action being taken against a Mapuche group in Villa Mascardi."
