BUENOS AIRES — The Argentine stand-up comic Malena Pichot has a bit where she excoriates those who oppose legalizing abortion. The joke — if you could call it that — is about how much their stance willfully devalues women.

They “hate women so much,” she says, “despise them so, that they identify more with an embryo smaller than a grain of rice. They have more empathy with this than with a whole woman, about to get an abortion in an illegal place and maybe die.” (Unfortunately, it’s not much funnier in the original Spanish.)

At this time last year, hardly anyone could have predicted that discussions of when a group of cells could be considered a baby, or the number of women dying from clandestine abortions, would be dominating Argentine headlines. And yet they are: Lawmakers are preparing to debate several bills that would legalize abortion within the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. The lower chamber of Congress is expected to vote on the issue next month. Passage would make Argentina the most populous country in Latin America to permit women to terminate pregnancies, in a region that skews toward absolute prohibition.

That Argentina could suddenly become a regional beacon for choice is surprising. The past decade or so has ushered in a series of progressive reforms in the country, such as gay marriage, trans rights and sexual education policies. But abortion, before this spring, was off the table — a combination of lack of political will and opposition from the influential Roman Catholic Church, fighting on Pope Francis’ home turf.