Abortion and Democracy

Contentious Body Politics in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay

Barbara Sutton, Nayla Luz Vacarezza, Barbara Sutton, Nayla Luz Vacarezza

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781000404463
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Abortion and Democracy offers critical analyses of abortion politics in Latin America's Southern Cone, with lessons and insights of wider significance. Drawing on the region's recent history of military dictatorship and democratic transition, this edited volume explores how abortion rights demands fit with current democratic agendas.

With a focus on Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, the book's contributors delve into the complex reality of abortion through the examination of the discourses, strategies, successes, and challenges of abortion rights movements. Assembling a multiplicity of voices and experiences, the contributions illuminate key dimensions of abortion rights struggles: health aspects, litigation efforts, legislative debates, party politics, digital strategies, grassroots mobilization, coalition-building, affective and artistic components, and movement-countermovement dynamics. The book takes an approach that is sensitive to social inequalities and to the transnational aspects of abortion rights struggles in each country. It bridges different scales of analysis, from abortion experiences at the micro level of the clinic or the home to the macro sociopolitical and cultural forces that shape individual lives.

This is an important intervention suitable for students and scholars of abortion politics, democracy in Latin America, gender and sexuality, and women's rights.

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ABORTION RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY

An Introduction

Barbara Sutton and Nayla Luz Vacarezza

DOI: 10.4324/9781003079903-1

What is the connection between abortion rights and democracy, not only as a system of government but as a means of promoting social justice? How do histories of political repression and human rights violations shape abortion struggles in contemporary democracies? What broader lessons might be drawn when using “democracy” as a lens to understand the status of abortion in different societies and the activist efforts for its recognition as a right? Abortion and Democracy grapples with these central questions through analyses of the politics of abortion in three Latin American countries: Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. Drawing on these nations’ recent history of military dictatorship and democratic transition, the book explores how demands for abortion rights engage and influence current democratic agendas. The authors additionally offer insights of wider significance, particularly since gender, sexuality, and abortion have been at the center of political dispute in various countries. Through the examination of multiple discourses and strategies as well as the challenges and successes of abortion rights movements in the region, this volume unpacks the complex reality of abortion in specific locales and in transnational perspective.

Abortion and Democracy sheds light on key dimensions and sites of struggle pertaining to abortion: party politics and grassroots mobilization, coalition building and litigation efforts, affective and visual strategies, digital activism, healthcare and abortion accompaniment, movement-countermovement dynamics, and the role of academia in the abortion debate. As a whole, the book interrogates social inequalities and attends to the transnational aspects of political contention around abortion. It bridges different scales of analysis: from abortion experiences at the micro level of the clinic or the home to the macro sociopolitical and cultural forces that shape individual lives. The book addresses abortion as a matter of “body politics” in at least three senses, all involving relations of power: (1) how state, religious, medical, and other social discourses and regulations discipline and materially impact the bodies and lives of those who need an abortion; (2) how these effects of power are contested through collective bodies in protest, individual embodied resistance, abortion accompaniment, and myriad other strategies; and (3) how these disputes delineate who is deemed to belong (or not) to the body politic, with the rights associated with full citizenship.

Abortion rights activism has made strides in different parts of the world, yet opponents have also organized to restrict or completely ban the practice. In light of such conflicts, it is important to consider contexts where abortion has been significantly restricted by law and where it is legal but under fire. Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay were selected as countries that integrate a region of Latin America—the Southern Cone—not only in terms of geographical proximity, but also based on cultural, linguistic, demographic, and historical similarities and connections.¹ Furthermore, during the last decade these countries saw important political developments related to abortion. As will be further elaborated, the legal status of abortion has varied among the three sites at different points during that period: Only late in the decade did Chile shift from a total abortion ban to the decriminalization of abortion on three grounds (causales); in Argentina the abortion rights movement successfully pushed to move away from a system of abortion criminalization with a few exceptions to one of legalized abortion (obtaining a favorable policy change in December 2020); and Uruguay is a pioneer among the three countries with respect to abortion liberalization, with a law approved in 2012 that permits abortion on demand during the first trimester of pregnancy. The decade was also marked by extraordinary feminist mobilizations that helped shape the public agenda in the region, including instances of transnational solidarity. Thus, in addition to similarities and variations, this book shows how certain strategies have crossed borders and how abortion rights movements in the region have developed activist connections.

Broad social and political developments, even global ones, affect the status of abortion in specific locales. Changes in government administration in 2019—for example, in Argentina toward more progressive directions and in Uruguay toward conservatism—presented the possibility of new abortion scenarios. These questions emerged: Might Argentina move closer to legalization? Will Uruguay backslide? Still, as the history of abortion politics in Latin America shows, the overall ideological orientation of the government does not neatly predict the fate of abortion (Blofield and Ewig 2017; Friedman 2019; Marcus-Delgado 2020). In Chile, a series of popular uprisings emerged in October 2019, demanding deep legal, political, and economic changes, shaking the conservative government in power. Feminists actively participated in these mobilizations, also raising questions regarding gender justice and abortion rights. In 2020, the global COVID-19 pandemic further scrambled politics and life in the Southern Cone, creating new uncertainties for the implementation of feminist agendas.

In light of these changing contexts, Abortion and Democracy offers a platform for comparative and transnational perspectives on abortion as a salient political issue. The contributions of international scholars, drawing on a range of disciplines and methodologies, have enriched this collection. Chapters are based on qualitative interviews, ethnographic fieldwork, archival research, media analysis, statistical information, visual analysis, and historical-comparative approaches. This introduction elaborates the volume’s conceptual framework and key dimensions of abortion politics in the region, while connecting to the authors’ contributions. Overall, the book presents urgently needed analyses of abortion from multiple vantage points.

Legal Contexts in Dictatorship and Democracy

The three countries studied in this volume underwent military dictatorships during overlapping periods in the last quarter of the twentieth century (Argentina 1976–83; Uruguay 1973–85; Chile 1973–90). This was a time when torture, political imprisonment, assassination, and forced disappearance were part and parcel of state-sponsored mechanisms to impose political, economic, and social agendas. It was also a period of stifled politics, when it was hard to organize for and exercise rights that might be taken for granted in democracies. This authoritarian legacy, and opposition to it, has shaped aspects of abortion politics in democracy, including activist symbols, political discourse and affects, party dynamics, and movement alliances. The book’s authors address contemporary abortion struggles mindful of this history, showing the linkages between abortion rights activism and broader democratic and social justice aspirations during the post-dictatorship.

In the aftermath of dictatorial governments, abortion rights demands in Latin America’s Southern Cone became entwined with the struggle for democracy. Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay began their democratic transitions with punitive abortion legislation that either preceded the dictatorship or was modified during military rule. In Uruguay, a 1938 law penalized abortion but allowed judges to reduce the sentence in certain circumstances. In Argentina, the Penal Code criminalized the practice since 1921, except for cases of rape or risk to the health or life of the woman.² In Chile, one of dictator Augusto Pinochet’s last acts in office was to repeal the Health Code of 1931 that authorized therapeutic abortion, leading to a total abortion ban.

In democratic times, abortion rights movements grew and demanded legal reform, obtaining some victories. Uruguay legalized abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy in 2012. In Chile, a legal reform in 2017 allowed abortion on three grounds: rape, danger to the woman’s life, and fetal anomalies incompatible with extra-uterine life. In Argentina, criminalization remained in force, but a “procedural turn” (Bergallo 2014) and a 2012 Supreme Court decision (F., A.L. case) helped promote gradual changes toward increased abortion services for legally permitted cases (i.e., those included in the exceptions to penalization). In December 2020, the National Congress of Argentina passed a bill to legalize abortion on demand until the 14th week of pregnancy. This recent development constitutes a transformation of historic proportions, likely with ripple effects that cannot yet be fully grasped.

While democracy enabled certain progress with respect to the legal status of abortion, it did not end the clandestinity of the practice, with variations in rights and access. Given this scenario, activists have persistently pushed for abortion liberalization and effective implementation. Abortion rights activism has steadily expanded, and it gained extraordinary momentum during the 2010s. Yet even in Uruguay, which achieved earlier legalization, restrictions and obstacles remain (Correa and Pecheny 2016; Wood et al. 2016). Barriers to abortion access, including in cases that fit exceptions to penalization, have also been a major concern in Argentina and Chile (ANDHES et al. 2018; Mesa Acción por el Aborto en Chile and Fondo Alquimia 2019). In Argentina, the inclusion of conscientious objection in the newly passed law of 2020 may also be used by abortion opponents to create obstacles to the practice. Thus, activists and advocates are aware of the need to continually monitor both the effects of restrictive legislation as well as the implementation of the rights codified by law. In this sense, the production of academic knowledge about various dimensions of abortion in restrictive contexts has also contributed to the abortion rights cause (see, e.g., Johnson et al. 2011; Pecheny and Herrera 2019; Casas Becerra, this volume).

Research, Activist Legacies, and Abortion Rights

Research about abortion and its politics in the Southern Cone has followed the path of democracy. After dictatorial regimes, women’s, feminist, and abortion rights movements had a better context to develop their potential. Also, scholars advocated for new research agendas that considered women’s rights, gender, sexuality, and abortion. A number of studies focus on legal analysis, ³ while others address health issues such as healthcare services and women’s mortality related to abortion.⁴ Several works analyze reproductive rights, placing abortion at the intersection of women’s citizenship and human rights.⁵ Other studies examine the abortion rights movement, its history, strategies, controversies, organizational models, and coalition-building efforts.⁶

Abortion rights activism in the Southern Cone is deeply entwined with broader femini...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Abortion Rights and Democracy: An Introduction
• PART I: Comparative and Transnational Perspectives
• PART II: Uruguay
• PART III: Argentina
• PART IV: Chile
• Index