With complete secrecy, Argentina has signed up to the Geneva Consensus Declaration, a pro-life anti-abortion declaration promoted by the United States. The instrument addresses the health of women and girls, but has one specific objective: to exert influence over multilateral organisations and oppose the legalisation of abortion.
Argentina’s Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno and US Ambassador to Argentina Peter Lamelas signed the document on Monday, August 10. However, there was no official announcement – President Javier Milei’s administration only announced the move three days later, after information emerged in the US press, and the Perfil newspaper sought confirmation.
In June, the United States took over control of the Secretariat of the Geneva Consensus Declaration on Promoting Women's Health and Strengthening the Family, replacing Hungary. The agreement is not a legally binding instrument and accession does not entail any commitments. But in libertarian terms, it functions as a bastion in the culture war, encouraging signatory countries to act as a bloc internationally. Argentina’s accession raises another question: is it the prelude to a debate over the current legislation governing the voluntary termination of pregnancy?
Quirno announced the signing without even mentioning the word abortion, referring only to the “protection of human life.” The secrecy surrounding the move opens up a wide range of possibilities, from a change in strategy among the ‘blues’ – Argentina’s pro-life movement – to the Milei camp’s awareness that the necessary agreements to pursue a reactionary agenda are lacking.
Despite the lack of official explanations from government, rumours that Argentina would join the declaration had been gaining momentum. In July, the ultra-conservative think tank Political Network for Values (PNfV) held a series of events in Buenos Aires, with Foreign Minister Quirno as its star guest. At one of the meetings, Argentina’s top diplomat met Valerie Huber, a US pro-life activist known as the ‘architect’ of the Geneva Consensus.
Those events served as a ‘preparatory’ stage. Just two weeks later, Bethany Kozma, director of Global Affairs at the US Department of Health & Human Services, travelled to Buenos Aires and posed for photographs with Quirno and Lamelas to celebrate Argentina joining the declaration. Agustín Caulo, Argentina’s secretary for religious affairs and civilisation, also took part in the event.
Secrecy
On Monday 10, journalist Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell, who is accredited to the White House, reported on the conservative news website Daily Signal that Argentina had signed the declaration. The article included direct quotes from Kozma celebrating the signing and the “friendship” between Argentina and the United States.
Yet there was no mention of the move on official government websites or on the social media accounts of Argentine government officials. The only exception was Health Minister Mario Lugones, who posted on Wednesday, August 12, about a meeting with Kozma at which healthy eating was discussed.
Perfil contacted Argentina's Foreign Ministry to confirm the information. Initial responses were evasive. The Health Ministry referred the query to Quirno’s office; the Casa Rosada took a similar position: “Only the Foreign Ministry can confirm it,” officials said. The US Embassy replied that the question should be directed to the Argentine government.
At around 8pm, Argentina’s accession to the Geneva Consensus was finally made public by social media posts on X by Quirno and Lamelas. When Perfil asked about the delay in announcing the move, two explanations emerged. “There have been several adjustments to the wording over the past few days,” a Foreign Ministry source said.
Another person linked to the sector explained that the authorities had been waiting for the formal handover of control of the Secretariat from Hungary to the United States. The change of leadership was published on the US government’s official website on August 12 via a statement signed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The Geneva Consensus
The events organised by PNfV had fuelled rumours that Argentina might sign the Genesis Convention Declaration.
Clara Muzzio, deputy mayor of the Buenos Aires City Government, and Santiago Santurio, a La Libertad Avanza lawmaker, were the most visible faces of the PNfV’s arrival in Buenos Aires, although all the leading figures from Argentina’s conservative camp were present, albeit with a lower profile.
Underlining its exposure to the heights of government, talks were organised at the Buenos Aires City Legislature, at Agustín Laje’s Faro Foundation think tank, at the Palacio San Martín, the home of Argentina’s Foreign Ministry, and at the Military Circle and at the University of Buenos Aires Law Faculty.
PNfV is committed to seeking long-term transformation and forming alliances. It creates spaces for meetings between leaders who share its worldview, which is opposed to the so-called “gender agenda” and sexual and reproductive rights in general. Although the meetings in Buenos Aires were key, an ally of the network told Perfil that Argentina’s accession was not triggered solely by these encounters. They acknowledge that the issue has been part of Milei’s agenda from the outset and, in particular, highlight Huber’s work as the ‘main promoter of the consensus’. In the United States, she heads the pro-life organisation Institute for Women’s Health (IWH).
The Geneva Consensus was launched in the United States in 2020, during Trump’s first administration. According to one of its promoters, it emerged as an “instrument to help countries that felt pressured by multilateral organisations to open the door to abortion under the pretext of promoting measures in favour of the health of women and girls.” Supporters of the initiative maintain that these governments were “isolated.”
Point four of the Geneva Consensus Declaration stresses that “abortion should in no case be promoted as a method of family planning.” Its defenders nevertheless clarify that the document recognises countries’ sovereignty to establish their own laws. “It is a political and diplomatic instrument,” they say.
The declaration encourages signatory countries to promote women’s health and rights, while establishing that abortion cannot be considered a right. States theoretically undertake to improve sexual and reproductive healthcare, strengthen health systems and protect women and girls. The defence of the family is a central element of the text.
The Geneva Consensus has attracted criticism on several fronts. One of the most frequent is that among its 41 member countries are some of the world’s most authoritarian states, including Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Congo, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Belarus. Indeed, when Joe Biden became US president, Washington withdrew.
Something similar happened in other countries. In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro joined the declaration, after which Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva pushed for the country’s withdrawal. In Colombia, the declaration was signed by Iván Duque, but Gustavo Petro took office shortly afterwards and withdrew. At present, the countries in the region that continue to support the Geneva Consensus are Haiti, Guatemala and Paraguay.
Trump’s return to the White House not only meant the United States rejoining the coalition, but also taking the lead. And, as might be expected under the Milei administration, Argentina has just joined.
Culture war and consensus
The pro-life cause is one of Milei’s banner issues – indeed, La Libertad Avanza is an alliance that brought together different sectors of the national right, with conservatives carrying significant weight within it. Many officials, including Santurio and Caulo, for example, emerged as leaders from the pro-life movement that surged during the first debate over abortion legalisation in 2018.
Despite the importance of abortion to the government, since Milei arrived at the Casa Rosada there has been one idea that officials have repeatedly stressed: nobody will attempt to repeal the law without first securing the necessary consensus. “You only have one bullet and you have to know how to use it,” a figure from the sector told Perfil on more than one occasion.
This ‘caution’, however, does not mean that public policies promoting sexual and reproductive rights are functioning as they ought to. A study by the Centre for the Study of State and Society (CEDES), the Latin American Team for Gender Justice (ELA) and the Network for Access to Safe Abortion (REDAAS) analysed budget cuts under the Milei government and projected that the withdrawal of funding would leave 840,000 women without protection against unintended pregnancies, resulting in 452 avoidable maternal deaths.
Argentina’s conservatives oppose not only abortion but also various policies associated with diversity, with some going even further – Francisco Sánchez, a former national secretary for religious affairs, for example, spoke out against divorce in 2024 during a summit hosted by the far-right Spanish party Vox.
For now, however, the Casa Rosada’s strategy appears to be focused on the overall degradation of programmes and public policies. One explanation can be found in the broad social consensus that exists around this agenda in general terms. To cite just one example, the latest Ipsos Pride report placed Argentina among the Latin American countries with the highest acceptance of sexual diversity: 65 percent of respondents believe that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, a higher proportion than in Chile (57 percent), Mexico (54 percent), Brazil (44 percent), Colombia (40 percent) and Peru (26 percent).
Argentina’s accession to the Geneva Consensus Declaration raises questions about how far the Milei camp is prepared to go. Within the government, some believe the best approach is to replicate the strategies of think tanks such as PNfV, which seek to build consensus over the long term rather than blow a potential opportunity apart with inflammatory statements.
Perhaps that is the reason for Quirno’s secrecy.
