1.2.1 Secularization

A decline in religiosity – measured below as the importance of religion in people’s lives – has been theorized to presage the push for abortion legalization. In Latin America, the power of institutionalized Christianity is the most significant antiabortion force. The Church defends the right to life from conception and envisions abortion as murder. Activists and politicians who seek to legalize abortion are “fighting organized Christianity” (Reference CorralesCorrales 2021: 2).Footnote ³ And whereas some countries in the region observed an increase in the number of people who do not identify with any religion (Reference Somma, Bargsted and ValenzuelaSomma et al. 2017), and the rise of “Light Catholicism” (Reference CorralesCorrales 2021: 22), tolerance and acceptance for abortion have not significantly changed. The Church has publicly threatened to excommunicate those who support abortion legalization, a considerable threat in a region where the majority, 83.7 percent of politicians, identify as Catholics (Reference Alcántara and CristinaAlcántara and Rivas 2018; Reference Fernández AndersonFernández Anderson 2021).

Beyond the influential Catholic Church, the popular and ever-growing Evangelical movement in Latin America holds conservative views about reproductive and LGBTQ rights (Reference BoasBoas 2020; Reference CorralesCorrales 2021). Hence, even when we observe changes in the way citizens identify religiously, the new alliance between Evangelicals and Catholics suggests that religion is a key variable in understanding abortion criminalization.

Explaining abortion decriminalization requires that we examine how and when political actors can confront and win a fight against one of the world’s oldest and most powerful institutions. For a long time, reproductive rights, and especially abortion, were not even publicly discussed as they were envisioned as issues that wasted votes (“pianta votos”) while antagonizing the powerful Catholic Church (Reference Fernández AndersonFernández Anderson 2021). Is it the decline of organized religion, or religiosity more broadly, that explains why abortion has suddenly become a wedge issue in Latin American politics?

While proabortion movements across the region have certainly challenged the cultural hegemony of the Catholic Church, there is some evidence that religiosity has actually increased across the region in recent years (Smith 2018; Reference Mariela and MoseleyDaby and Moseley 2022). In 2013, Pope Francis became the head of the Catholic Church. As the first pope from the Americas born in Buenos Aires, Francis has a more tolerant and welcoming position for members of the LGBT community, but sustains traditional views of the Church about abortion. In Argentina, for example, 71 percent of citizens continue to identify as Catholic and over 90 percent have favorable views of the pope (Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project 2014). Moreover, it is unclear why a decline in the importance of religion would drive decriminalization in some contexts, and retrenchment in others.

Figure 2 presents results from an estimated ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model of abortion justification, drawing on survey data from fifteen countries in Latin America (AmericasBarometer 2014). The results illustrate the extent to which other individual-level variables correlate with abortion support. In these individual-level models of abortion justification, religiosity has a significant negative effect – in other words, the more religious one is, the less likely they are to support abortion rights. Another piece of evidence that also seems consistent with the secularization argument is that educational attainment is the strongest individual-level determinant of support for abortion rights, as highly educated individuals tend to be less religious (Reference Casanova, Beyer and BeamanCasanova 2007; Figure 3). But these results tell us little about the distribution of religious and educated individuals, nor the motivations of politicians who have shifted course on reproductive rights. A decline in the importance of religion alone thus seems insufficient to explain the current inflexion point in Latin American’s relationship with abortion.

Figure 2 Individual-level correlates of abortion justification

(AmericasBarometer 2014)Footnote ⁴

1.2.2 Public Opinion

Changes in public opinion are often used to explain significant changes in moral policy.Footnote ⁵ The idea is that changes in public policy become possible when a sizable portion of the population changes their views on moral policy issues (see Reference Page and ShapiroPage and Shapiro 1983; Reference LoftusLoftus 2001; Reference Wood, Correa and PechenyWood et al. 2016). Causality, nevertheless, should be addressed in studying changes in public opinion and policy. For example, in her study of abortion decriminalization in Spain, Reference BlofieldBlofield (2006) shows that changes in public opinion took place after policy changes.

Our work takes public opinion seriously because we know that politicians take polls into account in making political decisions, and in Latin America’s democratic era, voters shape public policy through elections. Furthermore, in regimes in Latin America where protests are frequent (Reference MoseleyMoseley 2018), the temperature on the streets is used to push for policy change. Illustrative of this argument is the public change of opinion of former president of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who explicitly stated that she changed her opinion about abortion legalization from being against its legalization to supporting it due to the presence of the women and girls in the streets during the debate in the Congress.

Figure 3 highlights to extent to which attitudes regarding abortion have shifted in Latin America over the past decade. According to public opinion data from Ipsos, while the global average in terms of abortion favorability has remained somewhat constant, a number of Latin American countries have experienced significant boosts in support.Footnote ⁶ Among the biggest movers is Mexico, where abortion support increased from about 50 percent in 2014 to 66 percent in 2021. Brazil has undergone a similar sea change, and in Argentina, abortion rights now count on higher levels of popular support than in Canada or the United States.

Figure 3 Favorability toward abortion legalization over time in the Americas

But did changes in public opinion regarding abortion rights cause the debate to emerge, or vice versa? A closer look at the timing of opinion shifts reveals that significant turns in public opinion seem to have occurred following mass mobilization in the streets, and the introduction of abortion rights on the policy agenda. Prior to 2017, positive attitudes toward abortion experienced only an incremental uptick. In Argentina, the most significant positive shift in abortion justification occurred after a decriminalization bill was introduced in Congress in 2018 (Reference Mariela and MoseleyDaby and Moseley 2022). While Latin Americans have certainly moderated in their views on reproductive rights, it is unclear that public opinion drove the abortion debate, or if it was actually the other way around.

1.2.3 The Left

The left, broadly defined as progressive incumbents or a strong coalition of left parties in government, has been associated with changes in reproductive rights given its historical commitment toward equality (Reference FriedmanFriedman 2009; Reference Blofield and EwigBlofield and Ewig 2017). In Latin America, the type of left party is essential to understand abortion decriminalization. Institutionalized left parties are more likely to liberalize reproductive rights than populist left governments (Reference Blofield and EwigBlofield and Ewig 2017: 481). In recent years, abortion has found its way on the policy agenda in countries with conservative presidents (Argentina), and even been fully decriminalized in countries where rightist parties govern (Colombia). Clearly, the odds of passing legislation that liberalizes abortion law increase exponentially when programmatic left parties are in power. But the legislative process is not the only pathway that abortion rights movements have leveraged to pursue their goals.

1.2.4 Class

In Latin America, the most unequal region in the world, class differences imply that abortions are safe and accessible to nonpoor women, but often result in injury or death for poor women who abort in unsafe conditions (Reference KulczyckiKulczycki 2011). As a result, building a women’s movement to legalize abortion is more challenging than in cases where all women, regardless of class, are unable to access safe abortions (Reference Mala and Laurel WeldonHtun and Weldon 2018).Footnote ⁷ This difference contributes to explain why divorce and same-sex marriage, two moral policies that were also strongly opposed by the Catholic Church, were passed much earlier than abortion. Being unable to get a divorce or marry affects all individuals regardless of their class status.

What was once believed a barrier to liberalization became a key component of social movement strategy. Throughout the region, abortion rights activists have appealed to conceptions of social justice to advocate for removing restrictions on abortion access. Class cleavages overlap with racial inequality in Latin America, but class-based movements have historically provided the foundation for social and economic progress throughout the region. By educating fellow citizens about the disproportionate burden carried by poor women with respect to abortion bans, abortion rights movements have weaponized inequality and turned a weakness into a strength. Latin American citizens understand the language of social and economic justice, and linking abortion rights to this storied history has become an effective strategy in the fight for abortion rights.

1.2.5 Issue Networks

Some argue that state and nonstate actors, together with activists and professionals, work together to achieve abortion legalization. The controversy in the literature is about the relationship and causality of social movements and activists. Instead of using social movements to refer to nonstate actors, scholars interested in explaining public policy change refer to policy networks (Reference Kubal, Díez and FranceschetKubal 2012), issue networks (Reference HtunHtun 2003), and networks (Reference Kathryn and KeckHochstetler and Keck 2007; Reference DíezDíez 2015). Some scholars argue that activists are the ones who form these networks (Reference DíezDíez 2015), while others (Reference HtunHtun 2003) state that these networks emerge as a result of common interests in a particular policy area, in this case, abortion. The argument is that these networks influence state and nonstate actors’ policy choices and contribute to shaping a supportive climate in public opinion.

1.2.6 Descriptive Representation

Countries in the region have been implementing different versions of gender quotas, including parity laws, since the 1990s. A recent overview of the literature shows that quotas are followed by greater legislative attention to “issues related to women’s rights, public health, and poverty alleviation” (Reference ClaytonClayton 2021: 235). The two ways quotas affect public policy are by broadly changing legislators’ behavior by altering the composition of the legislature, and shifting preferences by organizing collectively to affect legislative decisions, seem to explain changes in abortion policy in some Latin American countries. Building on a substantive body of research, Clayton shows that “women legislators participate more actively and more emotively in debates on women’s rights and other gendered issue areas than do men” (241).Footnote ⁸

In Latin America, the implementation of gender quotas led to an increase in the number of women in Congress changing the environment – from a majoritarian male legislature to a more mixed gender environment – and the discussions in Congress. Paraphrasing feminist scholar Mariana Reference CaminottiCaminotti (2013) quotas helped to “feminize” the political agenda (“feminizar la agenda política”). Research shows that quotas enable women legislators to sponsor bills related to women’s rights on issues of reproduction and violence against women (Reference Schwindt-BayerSchwindt-Bayer 2006; Reference Susan and PiscopoFranceschet and Piscopo 2008). By enlarging the number of women in Congress and incorporating women’s rights in the political agenda, quotas contributed to the discussion of abortion legalization.

Women legislators who had benefited from quotas played a central role in advancing reproductive rights in many Latin American countries. In the case of Argentina, the construction of a legislative block of women from different political parties identified as “the sisterhood” (“las sororas”) was central in giving the bill visibility and support. Silvia Lospenato, a deputy from the right-wing president’s political party (Propuesta Republicana [PRO]) gave one of the most powerful, emotional, and memorable speeches of the long session that captured the sense of time, change, and emotions that had been on displayed on the streets surrounding the Congress.Footnote ⁹ In her discourse, Silvia Lospenato mentioned and recognized all the actors who had participated in the fight to expand the rights for girls and women: “I came to politics for that reason: to address real problems. For the sisterhood, the multi-partisan group of women who came to Argentine politics to stay … united in our differences, always supporting women. For the women in our homes, our mothers and daughters … we want abortion to be legal, safe, and free. That it be law.”

Beyond gender quotas, the region has had female politicians elected to the highest office, the Presidency. Since the return of democracy in the region, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Panama, and Costa Rica had elected female presidents with different personal viewpoints about abortion. We examine some of these cases in detail and highlight how gender and politics play a role in female presidents’ decision to support or oppose bills about abortion legalization. However, almost every country in Latin America has gender quotas, but not all Latin American countries have legalized abortion. Indeed, none of the perspectives listed above fully explain why abortion has become such a critical wedge issue in Latin American politics in recent years, and more importantly, why countries have diverged in terms of reproductive rights access.

1.3.1 Ni Una Menos and the Making of a Social Movement Community

Ni Una Menos was a campaign to bring attention to gender violence. But it was also the match that would light the flame of a women’s movement of unprecedented scope and influence.Footnote ¹¹ Soon enough, social movement organizations involved in NUM were advocating for abortion rights. Through linking the movement’s claims regarding gender violence to abortion rights, feminist social movements, celebrities, and demonstrators were able to change public opinion and win over powerful political allies, paving the way for legalization in Argentina in 2020. Activists focused on the public health consequences of abortion, and the unequal consequences of prohibition. According to this logic, abortions are going to happen one way or another, but banning them ensures that some women – particularly the poor – will abort in unsafe conditions and die. Without legal abortion, there could be no “ni una menos.”

In their efforts to shape public policy and win popular support, social movements adopt frames. Collective action frames are “schemata of interpretation” (Reference GoffmanGoffman 1974) that are “intended to mobilize potential adherents and constituents, to garner bystander support, and to demobilize antagonists” (Reference Snow and BenfordSnow and Benford 1988: 198; see also Reference PedrianaPedriana 2006; Reference SnowSnow 2013; Reference McAdamMcAdam 2017). In the case of abortion rights, social movements must craft strategies that turn believers out to rallies, but also be mindful of how to recruit new allies in other social movements, move the needle of public opinion, and persuade political elites who hold the key to reforming the laws on the books.

What has been crucial in Latin America in terms of framing abortion has been altering rights-based frames – similar to the legal arguments that served as the basis for abortion legalization in the United States – to include arguments grounded in notions of social justice. In Uruguay, the successful legalization movement in 2012 broadened the framing of abortion, and “underscored social inequalities regarding access to safe abortions and, therefore, placed the right to abortion (along with its delivery by the public health care system) within the framework of the widening of social rights” (Reference PousadelaPousadela 2016: 10). According to Reference Fernández AndersonFernández Anderson (2016), this included turning the antiabortion frame on its head by “drawing attention to the maternal deaths due to unsafe abortions and highlighting the disproportionate impact on young and poor women” (10). This approach linked the abortion movement with other social movements focused on issues related to social and economic justice, including gender violence, while highlighting the degree to which poor women in particular suffered from the clandestine nature of the practice.

By May 2016, what began as a movement against femicide and gender violence, which garnered widespread support, had absorbed reproductive rights into the set of claims voiced by a growing social movement community. The grassroots organizing spurred by NUM combined with more formal abortion rights organizations established in the 1980s and 1990s (Reference LopreiteLopreite 2012) to form an inclusive and massive abortion rights movement. Furthermore, the social justice framing techniques established in NUM served as a natural “bridge” (Reference Benford and SnowBenford and Snow 2000) between gender violence and abortion. By emphasizing the public health dimension of clandestine abortions, the Argentine abortion decriminalization movement leveraged the newly vibrant network of women’s organizations to mobilize natural allies, capture the attention of policymakers, and make inroads in changing public opinion.

In Section 2, we discuss the Argentine case in depth, supplementing analysis of survey data with evidence from in-depth interviews of abortion activists. The Argentine case is particularly important, as it inspired the “green wave” protests across the region in 2018. From Chile to Mexico, abortion advocates co-opted the symbolic green scarves worn by Argentine women, and many of the slogans that proved so persuasive in the country’s march toward legalization. As Colombian lawyer and abortion rights activist Mariana Ardila put it, “The victories of one country inspire other countries. We share strategies. We talk to each other. We learn from each other” (Reference John.Otis 2022).

1.3.2 Two Pathways to Legalization

The strategies and frames employed by social movements are shaped by social and political context, or what scholars in contentious politics describe as “political opportunities.” Political opportunity structures are “exogenous factors [that] enhance or inhibit prospects for mobilization, for particular sorts of claims to be advanced rather than others, for particular strategies of influence to be exercised, and for movements to affect mainstream institutional politics and policy” (Reference Meyer and MinkoffMeyer and Minkoff 2004: 1457–58). In Latin America, two pathways to reform have emerged in recent years: (1) building broad coalitions in legislatures to legalize or loosen restrictions on abortion rights, and (2) legal challenges to the constitutionality of abortion bans that are eventually adjudicated by the Supreme Court.

One key factor shaping whether abortion rights movements can advance their cause through legislatures is the nature and strength of the left party or coalition in government (Reference Blofield and EwigBlofield and Ewig 2017; Reference 79Fernández AndersonFernández Anderson 2020). Reference Blofield and EwigBlofield and Ewig (2017) theorize that “institutionalized left” parties are more likely to pass abortion liberalization, compared to “populist left” parties, for the following reasons:

In contexts like Argentina and Uruguay, where strong left parties (the Peronists or “Partido Justicialista” [PJ] and the Frente Amplio [FA], respectively) encompass diverse coalitions, and have tight connections to civil society, abortion legalization via the legislative process is possible (Reference 79Fernández AndersonFernández Anderson 2020). In the weeks leading up to the legislative debate in Argentina, President Alberto Fernández and his team worked tirelessly to convince undecided senators to support the bill. While the bill eventually passed both houses with supporters (and detractors) from multiple parties, the strength of the PJ was undoubtedly critical in pushing it over the finish line. And the PJ’s ties to feminist social movements undoubtedly convinced many prominent politicians, as Vice President (and former president) Cristina Fernández de Kirchner explained: “If you want to know who it was that made me change my mind, it was the thousands of girls who took over the streets. It was seeing them become true feminists” (August 8, Reference Alcántara and Cristina2018).

In Colombia (February 2022) and Mexico (September 2021), abortion rights have been expanded through the courts. Advancing reproductive rights via the judicial path requires a different approach, and is shaped by the amount of support abortion rights movements have in Congress. In Colombia and Mexico, it would be inconceivable that the national legislature would legalize abortion. Yet activists identified several areas where blanket criminalization is inconsistent with civil code. In Colombia, lawyers representing “Causa Justa,” a feminist collective, successfully argued that the criminalization of abortion was unjust because many women were unable to access abortion services even when they qualified based on existing law, such as victims of rape. In Mexico, the federal patchwork of abortion laws underlined the legal rationale for justices on the Supreme Court, who overturned a draconian law in Coahuila state that would penalize women who had sought abortions with three years in prison.

Even in cases where it has been the courts, rather than the national legislature, that have made abortion effectively legal, widespread contention has been critical in accelerating the debate. Mexican activists took Argentina’s lead, staging numerous mass protests in the months leading up to the Supreme Court decision characterized by masses of green-clad women voicing many of the same rallying cries that were successful in Argentina. On March 8, 2020 – International Women’s Day – hundreds of thousands of Mexican women participated in #UnDíaSinNosotras (A Day Without Us), in which they stayed home from work in protest against gender violence.

How have abortion rights movements adapted social movement frames to advance their cause based on the institutional opportunities available to them? In Colombia and Mexico, activists made more technical arguments grounded in Colombia’s long history of armed conflict and Mexico’s decentralized federal system. That said, the most compelling framing strategy in both countries continued to focus on the devastating public health consequences for poor women, and presented abortion access as a question of social justice. According to this line of argument, as long as clandestine abortions are widespread, abortion’s illegality only ensures that more poor women die from the procedure:

We should note that while Latin America is largely democratic, regimes across the region vary substantially in terms of democratic quality, and countries like Nicaragua and Venezuela have transitioned to illiberal systems of government. Nicaragua and Venezuela represent archetypical examples of populist parties that follow the lead of charismatic authoritarians in Daniel Ortega and Nicolás Maduro, respectively. Even in such cases where the authoritarian left is in power, without space for public debate and diversity within the governing party, it seems unlikely that abortion rights movements can make their mark.

2.2.1 An Inclusive Feminist Movement

A strength of the movement was its inclusivity. The movement welcomed every woman to join, and the streets displayed this variation in social class, race, and age in every mobilization. Women from the poorest areas marched together with those from the wealthiest neighborhoods. Brown and white women were on the streets together, along with women who supported all political parties ranging from the right to the left. The movement was profoundly political but not partisan. Indeed, there were no partisan signs at the demonstrations, as violence against women was not presented as a partisan issue. Moreover, political parties everywhere were catching up with a grassroots movement that demanded politicians act on an issue they were unwilling to act upon before the mobilizations.

Several of the participants went to the streets with their group of friends, but others chose to do it with their families. It was not unusual to see groups of three or four generations of women marching together – adding to the emotional component of the mobilizations.

The inclusivity of the movement and its massive character led to the construction of a community that, once seen and heard, could not be invisible and muted again. Eventually, women were on the streets demanding their right to free and safe abortions, and the world was watching.

Class differences were also present and visible at the mobilizations. It was clear to those participating that both wealthy and poor women attended the mobilizations. Several wealthy women whose children attended the most exclusive private English, German, Italian, and French schools in the country and those in private universities were there, sometimes together with their children, and sometimes with friends. Next to them, there were women from popular shantytown organizations. Whereas before NUM and the mobilizations to legalize abortion, it would have been hard to imagine what these women have in common, their experiences with gender discrimination and, for many of them, domestic violence and illegal abortions unified them.

Our interviews as well as written and media testimonies from the mobilizations document the presence of women from Recoleta (one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Buenos Aires), working-class neighborhoods (poor areas of José C. Paz, San Miguel, Malvinas Argentinas, and Pilar), and several shantytowns (see, for instance, the presence of the shantytown movement “La Garganta Poderosa”). When mobilizations took place on work days, women also attended together with those who worked for them, illustrating the inclusive nature of the movement and the demand:

College students from different social classes worked together for abortion legalization. When we attended community meetings with university students where discussions about abortion legalization took place, it became apparent that several activists did not have much in common regarding class and partisanship. However, they were nevertheless working together to achieve gender equity and eventually, reproductive rights. Educated university students were aware of their differences and chose systematically to focus on their “shared oppression due to their gender.” “It really doesn’t matter who your parents are, how much money you have, where you live. None of us can have an abortion. Period. We all want the same. That’s it. It’s that simple.”Footnote ¹⁹

2.2.2 The Revolution of the Daughters

Feminism has become a potent political force in the region. In many of our conversations with teenagers and young women, feminism appeared as the driving reason for them to enter the political arena. “I had never been into politics or mobilizations. I didn’t feel any of the existing grievances were mine until this.”Footnote ²⁰ Feminism became a political movement that united women in the region and enabled the entrance into politics of a new generation of young girls and women who identified as feminists. Journalist and activist Luciana Peker describes this phenomenon as “the revolution of the daughters” (“la revolucion de las hijas”).

Describing the scene in the streets while Congress was discussing the abortion bill in the lower chamber, a well-known activist told us: “I looked around me, and I knew we won. Most of those around me were teenagers.”Footnote ²¹ Women, especially young women, were the core of mobilizations in Argentina and other Latin American countries. They were central in displaying costumes and creative art and using their voices to chant clever songs supporting abortion legalization. They also signified how when it came to reproductive rights in Latin America, times were changing.

A famous writer and activist in Buenos Aires told us that she had not found something that made her identify with her country before the women’s mobilization. People commented about tango and soccer every time she traveled, two things in which she had no interest. Feminism and street mobilizations were the first things that made her proud of her nationality. “Talking about my country as one in which women fight on the streets for their rights, that really made me proud.”Footnote ²²

Young women made an impression on political elites as well. The highest profile was former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who explained why she changed her mind from opposing abortion while she was president to voting in favor of its legalization when she was a national senator. In her biographical book, Sincerely (2019), as well as in her speech in Congress during the hours-long legislative debate, Fernández de Kirchner explained the impact that the mobilizations, especially the massive turnout of young women (including her daughter) in the streets had in changing her mind.

Fernández de Kirchner reflected that it was not only her daughter who made her change her mind, but high school students and thinking about how she was going to be seen years later by her granddaughters.

The feminist movement has been a source of hope for many in a context where politics and economics are disastrous. In our last field trip in April 2022, amid a political and economic crisis, most of our interviewees agreed that the feminist movement, and the legalization of abortion, was one of, if not the only, positive things to happen in the country in years.

2.2.3 The Legacy of Nunca Más

It is impossible to write about the history of the women’s movement in Argentina without mentioning the “Madres de la Plaza de Mayo” (Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo). During the dictatorship, a group of mothers whose children had been kidnapped and disappeared decided to organize. Mothers searching for their children and grandmothers searching for their grandchildren, who were kidnapped by the military and handed over to adoptive families, shared their desperation to know the whereabouts of their loved ones. They began organizing to share resources and meet weekly on Thursdays at the pyramid in the Plaza de Mayo (in front of the government house) to demand the appearance (“aparición con vida”) of their disappeared children. Many of the women, including the movement’s founders, had not had any political experience or participation before the disappearances of their family members. Using their nonpolitical social role as mothers, they politicized their motherhood role as caregivers of their missing children (Reference NoonanNoonan 1995).

The Mothers’ role was central in delegitimizing the authoritarian regime and resurrecting a civil society that was afraid and dormant during the dictatorship (O’Donnell et al. 1986). They became an iconic and internationally recognized human rights group, as did the white handkerchiefs they wore on their heads.Footnote ²³ The idea of the white handkerchiefs was symbolic and practical. To identify themselves, they decided to cover their heads with cloth diapers that many of them used in taking care of their grandchildren whose parents had been kidnapped and disappeared.

Building on the Madres’ tradition of being political but not partisan, women in the abortion movement chose to use the same handkerchief that the “Madres” and “Abuelas” used to self-identify themselves. The movement for abortion legalization borrows from this tradition by using a different color: green. Many of the cartoons and graphic images used during the campaign showed images of a young woman wearing a green handkerchief and a grandmother wearing a white one with slogans reading: “today and forever.”

Actresses, writers, and journalists wore the green handkerchiefs on prime-time television programs, shows, and awards ceremonies. Most importantly, young girls, especially high school and college students, wore them on their backpacks. As a result, it became common to observe young girls and adults signaling pro-abortion beliefs on public transport and on the streets. Women, girls, and activists throughout Latin America adopted this symbol to fight for abortion rights in their countries. Recently in the United States, activists protesting the overturn of Roe vs. Wade have worn the same green handkerchiefs that Argentine feminists made famous, including Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.

2.3.1 Mobilizing a Massive Social Movement Community for Abortion Rights

The NUM movement provided a massive organizational base to demand abortion legalization. Participants in the campaign built an organizational structure that helped the abortion rights movement overcome classic collective action problems (Reference Zald and AshZald and Ash 1966; Reference McCarthy and ZaldMcCarthy and Zald 1977). This collective included celebrities, famous writers, actresses, and organized groups of women from different places and backgrounds – labor unions, shantytowns, lawyers, advocacy groups – and young women, mostly from universities and public and private high schools. Many of those who participated in NUM were proficient in using social networks to share information. Since the NUM movement began, there was a shift in existing unwritten norms and culture that led women to believe there was space to demand change.

This transition from NUM to abortion rights mobilization brings to mind work on how campaigns build on one another, expanding social movement “communities” surrounding a given issue area (Reference StaggenborgStaggenborg 1988; Reference Staggenborg and LecomteStaggenborg and Lecomte 2009). In Argentina, new women’s “agrupaciones” (collectives) joined established organizations in the campaign to end gender violence, and the linkages between those groups would persist beyond NUM. According to Reference TillyTilly (2008), campaigns are “a sustained, coordinated series of episodes involving similar claims on similar or identical targets” (89). A campaign can affect future campaigns when it “transforms political opportunity structure, changes the array of available models for contentious performances, and alters connections among potential actors” (89).

With NUM, the creation of a massive social movement community surrounding women’s issues satisfied all of Tilly’s core criteria for shaping future campaigns. The campaign against gender violence created new political opportunities to bring attention to women’s issues. The mass demonstrations in front of the National Congress, and in city centers across the country, where activists were united in terms of their messaging in “cantitos” (songs), symbolic garb, and radical performances of womanhood altered the repertoire of performances available to women’s social movements.

The mix of established advocacy organizations and new insurgent collectives forged during NUM was a potent one. NUM combined veteran social movement organizations like the “Fundación para el Estudio y la Investigación de la Mujer” (FEIM; Foundation for the Study and Research of Women), which was founded in 1989 and has advocated for contraceptive access and against gender violence for decades. FEIM has formally supported abortion decriminalization since 2005 – long before it was a prominent issue in Argentine politics and society (Uranga 2018). Yet new movements, largely composed of younger, more radical feminists, also played a critical role in building NUM (Reference Mariela and MoseleyDaby and Moseley 2022). “Mala Junta” formed in 2015 amid the rise of NUM and represents the embodiment of “popular feminism,” focused on combating neoliberal policies more broadly, including Argentina’s prohibition on abortion, which disproportionately penalizes poor women. Other groups, such as MuMaLá (Mujeres de la Matría Latinoamericana), were tied to left political parties like “Libres de Sur.”

Ni Una Menos first appeared in 2015. Within a year, the movement had absorbed abortion into its set of demands, setting the stage for another campaign to pursue abortion rights. Before the mobilization planned to mark the one-year anniversary of NUM, abortion rights appeared for the first time in an official NUM manifesto on the organization’s website:

By 2016, the NUM campaign against gender violence had transformed into an abortion rights campaign. As Figure 6 shows, street demonstrations surrounding abortion experienced a fairly steady uptick from 2015 to 2020, setting the stage for the vote in Congress. This is a direct consequence of NUM. The organizational complexity that feminist activists had built in protesting against gender violence was thrown behind abortion rights, grounded in the notion that illicit, clandestine abortion itself was an act of violence against women – “without legalized abortion, there is no ‘ni una menos.’” Some folks who initially supported the claims against femicide undoubtedly defected when abortion rights were brought into the fold. But many new activists who had never viewed abortion as a question of social justice were persuaded to continue mobilizing for reproductive rights.

Figure 6 Abortion protests over time in Argentina

(2000–22)

It is no coincidence that the first real vote on abortion legalization in Congress occurred in 2018, following two years of intense mobilization. Argentina has had gender quotas since the early 1990s and elected a woman president in 2007; the center-left Peronist Party governed the country from 2003 to 2015 and passed important progressive legislation to address LGBTQ+ rights and reduce poverty. But it took hundreds of thousands of women in the streets to push policymakers to consider legalizing abortion. What changed in Argentina was the emergence of a massive social movement community, armed with a rallying cry that would resonate with the Argentine public and policymakers alike.

2.3.2 An Old Frame Takes on New Resonance

Ni Una Menos planted the seeds for building a massive social movement community surrounding women’s issues, and a unique platform to link reproductive rights to gender violence. While abortion, along with other issues like access to contraception (Reference LopreiteLopreite 2012; Reference Sutton and BorlandSutton and Borland 2013), had long been framed in terms of social justice in Argentina, NUM provided a window of opportunity for the abortion rights movement to deliver its message to a much larger audience. Social justice claims have a deep, entrenched history in the country. It is a resonant framework that social movements and labor unions have used successfully to achieve rights.

The Argentine feminist movement framed abortion as inseparable from economic inequality and gender violence, thus piggybacking on the success of NUM. Frames of collective action are “schemata of interpretation” (Reference GoffmanGoffman 1974) “intended to mobilize potential adherents and constituents, to garner bystander support, and to demobilize antagonists” (Reference Snow and BenfordSnow and Benford 1988: 198; see also Reference PedrianaPedriana 2006; Reference SnowSnow 2013; Reference McAdamMcAdam 2017). Building on the country’s tradition of advocacy, and the recent gains made by NUM in mobilizing women to take to the streets, Argentine feminists framed abortion as an issue of social and economic justice. The argument was simple: poor women die due to clandestine abortions. Without legal abortion, there could be no “ni una menos.” Avoiding philosophical questions about the origins of life or discussions about the fetus’s viability and legal justifications about women’s rights to privacy, Argentine feminists used empirical evidence to advance their cause. “In countries where abortion is illegal, many women undergo the procedure in clandestine circumstances at great risk to their health. Complications from botched abortions are a leading cause of maternal mortality in many countries and produce a major drain on the public health system” (Reference HtunHtun 2003: 142).

“Las ricas abortan, las pobras mueren” (The rich have abortions, the poor die) was repeated by all of those who supported legalization. Every time someone on TV, radio, or even in the streets argued that they were saving lives – referring to the unborn – activists pointed out that lives would be lost due to illegality. The simplicity of the argument was to bring the conversation back to the reality that women who want to have an abortion will get one. The question was if the state would make sure they do it in safe conditions. As one of the “cantitos” (songs) performed on the streets stated: “aborto legal, en el hospital” (legal abortions in hospitals). Framing abortion as a social justice issue complicated the positions of those who sought to keep the practice illegal because facts made crystal clear that wealthy women have safe abortions, while poor women die. Endorsing criminalization meant complicity in codifying a pernicious consequence of social inequality. Antiabortion activists never found a way to deal with the wealth of statistics indicating how mostly poor women died due to illegal abortions. More than half (54 percent) of low-income women are likely to have an unsafe abortion instead of 1 percent of higher-income and 5 percent of upper-middle-income women (Singh et al. 2018).

This framing of abortion rights as intrinsically tied to economic inequality and social justice was not new. It echoed prior messaging strategies employed by women’s groups in Argentina to expand access to contraception: “The rationale for adopting new contraceptive policies was framed primarily as a way to help poor women. … In countries with a weak tradition of civil rights, the focus on health, poverty and inequality may provide a strategic option for seeking [abortion] reforms [compared to rights-based arguments], especially as they face strong organized opposition.” (Reference LopreiteLopreite 2012: 124)

What was new was the reach of the message, now ringing out from massive demonstrations across the country (and on social media) in the new post-NUM era, buoyed by the support of a diverse and inclusive social movement community. NUM signified a sea change in terms of the political opportunities available for abortion rights activists to reach new audiences, and make Argentines consider the degree to which unsafe clandestine abortion and gender violence were one in the same, particularly for poor women.

By rooting abortion in a social justice framework, the feminist movement anchored the movement for abortion decriminalization in a history of street-based activism to promote economic justice. It also provided women from all social classes a sense of community that enabled the construction of solidarity, making “it easier to face the risks and uncertainties of collective action” (Reference Diani and Della PortaDiani and Della Porta 2005: 95). Grounding advocacy for abortion decriminalization in a social justice framework, activists tapped a resonant frame for the Argentine context focusing on the socioeconomic dimensions of abortion (Reference FerreeFerree 2003). The campaign was that abortion should be legal, safe, and free (“aborto legal, seguro, y gratuito”).

The movement was successful in shifting public opinion in favor of legalization. It is important to note that significant shifts in terms of public opinion occurred after the mobilizations in the street. As Figure 6 shows, street protests for abortion rights reemerged in 2016, on the heels of NUM, and by 2018 had kicked into high gear. Figure 7 illustrates how the greatest shift in terms of public support for abortion rights occurred from 2017 to 2019, when levels of abortion justification increased from 64 to 72 percent. According to data from the AmericasBarometer, this sea change in terms of public opinion was most pronounced among men, who reported a ten-point increase in acceptance of abortion when the mother’s life is at risk from 2017 to 2019 (Figure 7).

Figure 7 Abortion justification in Argentina over time

(AmericasBarometer 2019)

In 2018, as Congress prepared to debate the first bill to decriminalize abortion (which would fail in the Senate), abortion activists knew they had changed the conversation regarding reproductive rights for good: “We already won. Today we don’t vote for abortion “yes,” abortion “no,” but legal abortion or clandestine abortion. Each new death due to clandestine abortion will be the responsibility of the senators who vote against legalization today.” (Lucía Sánchez, a high school student; Reference CenteneraCentenera 2018)

2.3.3 A Countermovement Emerges: “Salvemos Las Dos Vidas”

Following the materialization of a full-fledged abortion rights movement, which piggybacked on NUM and had widespread support by 2018, green handkerchief-clad abortion activists outnumbered any competing political force in the streets of Buenos Aires and other major cities throughout the country. In early 2018, President Macri announced that he supported a “responsible and mature” debate regarding abortion rights, to the dismay of many of his conservative allies across the country.Footnote ²⁵ In the months that followed, a group of proabortion legislators brought forward the “Ley de Interrupción Legal del Embarazo” (ILE), which would legalize abortion through the first twelve weeks of pregnancy. The legislation passed in the Chamber of Deputies, and was sent to the Senate, which experts on legislative politics in Argentina suspected was the real obstacle to full legalization.

The possibility that Argentina might legalize abortion served as a wake-up call for conservatives, spurring the emergence of a prominent countermovement: “Salvemos Las Dos Vidas” (Let’s save both lives). Reference Meyer and StaggenborgMeyer and Staggenborg (1996) define countermovements as “networks of individuals and organizations that share many of the same objects of concern as the social movements they oppose. They make competing claims on the state on matters of policy and politics … and vie for attention from the mass media and broader public” (1632).

According to Meyer and Staggenborg, movements generate countermovements to the extent that they “first … show signs of success; second, the interests of some population are threatened by movement goals; and third, political allies are available to aid oppositional mobilization” (1635). The rise of a viable legalization movement, and clear evidence that feminist activists were having some success in recruiting powerful allies in positions of power, represented a warning sign to conservative Argentines. The Argentine antiabortion movement drew heavily on the support of Argentine Catholics, as major figures of the church in the country urged their fellow believers to take to the streets and defend the rights of the unborn. Movement adherents appealed to nationalism in their choice to adopt Argentina’s light blue (“celeste”) as their symbolic adornment.

On August 8, 2018, antiabortion activists called on Argentines to flood the streets of Buenos Aires to protest the ILE decriminalization bill under consideration in the Argentine Senate. Abortion rights activists countered by calling their own supporters to defend women’s right to control their own bodies. The #8A rally in Buenos Aires offered a stark illustration of the polarization surrounding abortion rights that had crystallized in recent years. In anticipation of the event, the government undertook massive security measures to close off twenty-eight streets near Congress for the green wave protests, and twenty-one for the light blue wave activists (Reference CenteneraCentenera 2018).

On August 9, 2018, the Senate rejected the ILE legislation, and antiabortion activists could breathe a sigh of relief. But there was a palpable sense that the abortion rights movement had achieved something akin to the “social decriminalization” of abortion (Tarducci 2018: 430). An abortion decriminalization bill had never made it so far in Congress, and the tens of thousands of women in the streets of Buenos Aires on the day the Senate rendered its vote proved that the abortion debate would continue in Argentina.

3.1.1 Dictatorship and Reproductive Rights Retrenchment

Abortion was defined as a crime in the penal code of 1874. However, in 1931, exceptions for therapeutic purposes were established in the Health Code. This exception was maintained until 1989, when the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet criminalized all types of voluntary termination of pregnancies. Women’s movements were central in questioning the regime’s legitimacy and contributed to Chile’s eventual transition to democracy. During Chile’s brutally repressive military regime, victims’ wives, sisters, mothers, and daughters became politicized and demanded to know about their loved ones and those left behind. The authoritarian government forced them to assume “a triple role: caretaker of the home and children, economic provider for the family, and caretaker of the community” (Reference NoonanNoonan 1995: 100). Studying political opportunities and collective action frames in Chile’s transition to democracy, Reference NoonanNoonan (1995) finds that women’s politicization eventually transformed from a maternal to a feminist frame.

Women’s organizations were also key actors in the “No” campaign during the 1988 plebiscite to decide whether Pinochet would continue in power. Their slogan was “We want democracy in the country, and at home.”Footnote ²⁷ The authoritarian government’s actions contributed to creating a coalition of women from two groups: organizations with a socialist affiliation of middle-class and professional women and groups of women from popular sectors (“pobladoras”). While central in delegitimizing the regime and mobilizing support for the democratic transition, the linkages and coalitions formed among women’s groups faded once the transition took place. “In the 1990s, political parties took center stage and displaced social movements, including women’s organizations” (Fernández Anderson 2021: 104).

With the return of democracy, Chile experienced another “feminist silence” (Reference KirkwoodKirkwood 1983).Footnote ²⁸ Chilean women built a large and powerful coalition across several organizations to fight for the right to vote. Once they conquered the right to vote, this effective coalition disappeared into thin air (Reference NoonanNoonan 1995). Women’s movements reorganized when a new generation of high school students, who had not experienced authoritarianism, began organizing to demand education reform, and eventually more sweeping social, economic, and political changes. Like in Argentina, Chile would experience its revolution of the daughters years later, culminating with massive mobilizations in support of women’s rights and the first Constitutional Convention with gender parity.

3.1.2 Transition to Democracy and Feminist Silence on Abortion

Since the transition to democracy that began in 1990, legislators from the parties belonging to the Concertación presented a series of bills that sought to reestablish therapeutic abortions like what existed before Pinochet’s dictatorship. The projects, nevertheless, were unsuccessful due to the opposition from parties within the same coalition that had close ties to the Catholic Church.Footnote ²⁹ The opposition argued that the therapeutic label was confusing and it had the potential of leading to free abortions. Politicians’ lack of interest in pushing for a divisive issue was accepted by most women who supported the Concertación, as Chile’s newly re-established democracy found its legs (Reference BaldezBaldez 2002).

At the beginning of the transition, women’s organizations thought abortion was too controversial and decided to focus on areas where they could build consensus. The movement was also divided about the strategy to pursue abortion reform. Some in the movement thought they should demand to reinstitute therapeutic abortions, while others sought to pursue a more radical path toward complete legalization (Reference Fernández AndersonFernández Anderson 2021). After the transition to democracy, the left in Chile came to view feminism as a divisive and bourgeois issue. Their view would begin changing two decades after the transition with the student protests and the accompanying feminist movement. The lack of a strong and unified women’s movement and a concerted push for reform left the complete ban on abortions unmodified until Michele Bachelet’s second administration (2014–18).

In 2011, President Sebastián Piñera said that he would use his constitutional veto power if a therapeutic abortion bill was approved in Congress. In 2013, Piñera again expressed his rejection of abortion, stating that “the word abortion and the word therapeutic are essentially contradictory because abortion is an attempt against life and therapeutic is trying to save life.”Footnote ³⁰

3.1.3 Michele Bachelet’s Limited Achievement: Therapeutic Abortions

During her second administration, President Michelle Bachelet announced that she would promote a bill to decriminalize therapeutic abortions in cases of risk to the mother’s life, rape, and viability of the fetus. The bill resulted from careful negotiations within Bachelet’s electoral coalition to ensure it would pass in Congress (Reference 79Fernández AndersonFernández Anderson 2020). While “officials within the administration acknowledged the role of women’s mobilization in including abortion in the government’s program, particularly in light of its exclusion in Bachelet’s first mandate” (Reference 79Fernández AndersonFernández Anderson 2020: 119), the bill itself never counted on the support of social actors such as women’s movements, health care workers, doctors, lawyers, or unions. Ultimately, the bill was crafted in “a closed-door process” (120).

All groups – including members of her own government’s coalition, civil society groups, and groups of women – were dissatisfied with Bachelet’s exclusionary strategy. Moderate groups of women were dissatisfied with their lack of input in the legislation, and more radical groups of women were concerned reinstating therapeutic abortions was actually an attempt to block future discussions of full abortion legalization.

Bachelet presented the bill claiming that “the current regulations on the interruption of pregnancy, which prohibits it without exceptions, do not respond to the dignified treatment that the state of Chile must grant to its citizens. In this respect, our country is one of the four in the world that criminalizes abortion in all circumstances.”Footnote ³¹ The government’s exclusionary strategy to get the bill passed alienated allies who wanted a more inclusive debate that placed full legalization on the table, and intensified the discontent of those who opposed lifting abortion restrictions. In the end, Chile returned to the same abortion restrictions present before Pinochet’s dictatorship without changing many hearts and minds, and without reaping any political reward.

3.1.4 Chile’s Social Uprising and Feminism

The social unrest in Chile in 2019 highlighted the massive disconnect between the government and its citizens. The Chilean youth, especially high school and college students and feminist activists, had an active and visible role in the events that led to a new social pact and a planned rewriting of the constitution. Chilean feminist activists, especially those in their last years of high school and college, became politically active during the student protests that began in 2006. The initial student mobilizations demanded changes in the curriculum, and later, in 2011, they expanded their claims to include free education.

The student movement was fearless and demanding. They were the first generation to be born after the end of the dictatorship and, as such, did not share the fear of government that their parents’ and grandparents’ generations had (Reference SommaSomma 2012). The students demanded a country without the legacy – institutional and cultural – of the dictatorship and adopted the provocative slogan, “Erasing your legacy will be our legacy” (Reference Piscopo and SiavelisPiscopo and Siavelis 2021).

Students were key actors in leading the protests that would escalate to a complete social crisis, the most important since the return to democracy. Responding to increases in Metro fares, students called for a mass refusal (“evade”) to pay the elevated fees, which led to a series of actions that challenged the stability of Piñera’s government. The call for evasion went viral on social networks, and in a couple of days, several stations and subway lines suffered interruptions due to the number of people avoiding paying for the service. In less than a week the number of evasion actions was so large that the Metro stopped providing services, leaving passengers stranded. As a result of the conflict at the Metro stations, fires, looting, and general protests erupted in the streets of Santiago (and beyond), and the president declared a state of emergency in the capital, allowing the armed forces to patrol the city alongside the Carabineros (Chilean’s national police force). The President’s declaration of a state of emergency failed to stop protestors and clashes with police. Army units, together with Carabineros, brutally attacked protestors, including firing ammunition and targeting protestors’ eyesight.

On October 25, 2019, over one million Chileans marched in Santiago against inequality and a perceived lack of government responsiveness. In November, Congress agreed to hold a referendum on rewriting the constitution. By the time of the social uprising in 2019, many female activists had been participating in different political activities within the feminist movement of their high schools and universities for years. In several conversations with groups of four or five activists, many of them told us that it was the actions in the universities against sexual harassment, and the mishandling of the situations by faculty and authorities that pushed them to act politically. Many of those we interviewed were activists in the Communist Party and self-defined feminists, illustrating the depth of change in the party’s incorporation of gender as an issue considerably different from class.

One young Chilean female activist described the social uprising of Chile as a “protest of emotion. Many people were crying, and there was so much trust among people who did not know each other; there was solidarity and a sense of fraternity.”Footnote ³² These moments of emotion that several participants shared while fighting against the army and the police in the streets of Santiago were the same emotions activists would eventually share in the mobilizations for abortion legalization.Footnote ³³

Feminist movements are at the center of political, economic, social, and cultural changes in Latin America. A month after social unrest took over the streets of Chile, a feminist collective known as “Las Tesis” created a performance that became a national and international sensation, being repeated and performed in several countries in the region and beyond. “Las Tesis” defined their collective performance as an intervention to call attention to the inaction and complicity of the state, the president, the police, and the judges in girls’ and women’s rapes and femicides. It was first done in Valparaíso, Chile, where Las Tesis installed themselves in front of the Carabineros’ police station in November 2019. Five days later, the video of the performance went viral after 2,000 Chilean women carried out the performance in Santiago.Footnote ³⁴

The intervention was translated into several languages and performed across the globe. Thousands of women performed the piece at the Zócalo, Mexico City’s central plaza,Footnote ³⁵ in Argentina, Colombia, France, Spain, and the United States. A group of feminist geographers (GeoChicas) documented that the intervention had taken place in over 400 locations in fifty countries (Figure 9).Footnote ³⁶ When the intervention took place in Istanbul, Turkey, the police intervened by detaining several participants, leading female Turkish members of Parliament to conduct the performance in Parliament.

Figure 9 Mapping the “A Rapist in Your Path” intervention by Las Tesis

Source: GeoChicas

In the recorded videos of the interventions in Latin America, we observe the influence of NUM, as many women donned green handkerchiefs with classic NUM slogans. Testimonies collected from those who chose to participate in the intervention were unsurprisingly similar. Most of them stated that they were there for those who were no longer alive to have their voices heard (“por las que no están”), which was at the core of the NUM movement. The two other repetitive comments were about the “insanity” of the demand “to be able to be safe, to exist” as something that women should have to ask from the police, judges, and the state. Lastly, many women highlighted the massive size of the interventions and the sense of feminist solidarity across a growing social movement community. Being there with others who are strangers that share the same plight. Many of these interventions featured the common refrain that “Latin America will be all feminists.”

3.1.5 Feminism and Abortion in Chile

Walking on the streets of Santiago, one can see the remnants of the graffiti from Chile’s social uprising, and among them, murals dedicated exclusively to feminists’ demands for gender parity in the constitutional convention, ending femicides, and legalizing abortion. Throughout Santiago, one can see the lasting strength and visibility of the feminist movement and its demands. Creating an inclusive feminist movement with young activists led to the first Constitutional Convention in the world with gender parity. It has also led to including an article in the constitution that, if approved, would provide abortion rights a constitutional status and protection. Surveys have revealed growing support for abortion rights. According to an Ipsos study from September 2021, about 73 percent of citizens approve of abortion under at least some circumstances. Some 41 percent think that abortion should be free and available through public health services, while 32 percent believe that it should be performed only under certain circumstances.

Figure 10 reveals the extent to which abortion rights activism has increased in Chile during the past decade. We uncovered very little evidence of protest events surrounding the issue from 2000 to 2010 in either of Chile’s two largest newspapers. It is no coincidence that social movement activity surrounding abortion first appeared on the heels of student protests, and then surged amidst the arrival of NUM from across the Andes in 2015. Public opinion seems to have followed ramped up activism, as support for abortion increased from 64 percent in 2014 to 73 percent in 2021.

Figure 10 Abortion protests over time in Chile

(2000–22)

The constitutional proposal was unique because it is uncommon for constitutions to refer to abortion explicitly. Most constitutions refer to reproductive and sexual rights. Some scholars and journalists believe that including abortion in the constitution is an unwise political move. They argue that it alienates people who would have supported a new constitution but are antiabortion and, therefore, unlikely to vote for the constitution including a proabortion clause – indeed, the first version of the constitution was rejected by a plebiscite in September 2022. Feminist issues and demands are always seen as threatening and always asked to be put aside – particularly abortion, due to its divisive nature. We cannot predict what will happen in the future. However, we can draw some lessons from the feminist movement in the country.

3.1.6 Building a Feminist Collective in the Streets

In all our interviews with activists, the word “collective” came up repeatedly. All activists talked about their experiences in the movement as a collective struggle. Talking with other women about their experiences made them realize how much of their life experience was not individual but a collective experience of being a woman in Chile and Latin America. An example of this is the fear that many young women, most students, share in taking public transportation at night. A common experience among women is to ask each other to text – or send a message via WhatsApp – when they arrive at their destination so they know everything is ok. This informal system of check-ins enables women to feel protected, and the protection “insurance” for their well-being is in the hands of their friends. As it reads on the walls in Santiago “te protegen tus amigas, no la polícia” (your friends protect you, not the police). Informal arrangements among women lead to building a collective identity. Feeling vulnerable and insecure being alone at night is not an individual experience but a collective and shared experience of women.

The framework is built on everyday experiences that had not been politicized before. Building on these collective experiences enables women to think and imagine their reality as a community. Moreover, as a collective, they fight together for abortion rights for all. The state should make you feel secure, but it does not. Even though you do not need or want to have an abortion, you should fight for those who would want and need to have one safely.

A sense of community was also present in the mobilizations. Testimonies from mobilizations in Buenos Aires, Bogota, Mexico City, and Santiago highlight the emotional intensity activists experienced on the streets and how those days changed them. Several of our interviewees in Buenos Aires and Santiago cried in remembering those days. Whereas several images of women on the streets showed them crying, the photos fail to capture the intensity of those feelings and how they have shaped the collective experience.

A word that came from the Argentinian streets was “sorority” (“sororidad”) – the idea that women shared a common identity and purpose, a sisterhood that bound them with other women. This sisterhood also made them likely to demand justice for injustices done to others. In the case of abortion, it was a right for everyone based on the reality that those who were poor were the ones that were more likely to suffer the consequences of illegal abortions. Feminists in Chile told us that the abortion legalization movement in Argentina profoundly influenced them. Many of them told us that several of the chants (“cantitos”) that they used in their mobilizations were borrowed from those used in the neighboring country: “We used the same songs. Why? Because they were good, we liked them, because we liked what happened in Argentina and wanted to happen here too. It was also a way to feel a connection with others, with feminists in Argentina that are like us.”Footnote ³⁷

An activist remembered her experience of seeing images on the Internet and then living those images in her life:

3.2.1 Abortion during One-Party Rule

Following the Mexican Revolution, the “Partido Revolucionario Institucional” (PRI) established the most durable one-party autocratic regime in Latin American history. Mexico is a federal system, and most states adopted criminal codes with similar language about abortion under PRI rule. All states banned abortions with exceptions reserved for cases of rape and to save the life of the mother. Just as the country began experiencing electoral competition in 1999, the case of Paulina gained national salience and spurred new discussion regarding abortion policy in Mexico.

Paulina was a thirteen-year-old from Mexicali, the capital of the state of Baja California, who was gang-raped during an armed robbery at her home. She became pregnant as a result of the rape and decided, with the support of her mother, to terminate the pregnancy. Despite the fact that all states legally enabled abortion in cases of rape, she was unable to exercise her right. The Catholic governor of the state of Baja California denied her access to legal abortion. Extensive media attention covered the case, leading to new discussions about abortion liberalization (Reference Lamas and BissellLamas and Bissell 2000; Reference Cruz TacarenaCruz Tacarena 2004; Reference BeerBeer 2017).

In 2000, the uninterrupted rule of the PRI ended when, after seventy-one years of one-party rule, Mexicans elected Vicente Fox from the center-right “Partido Acción Nacional” (PAN). During the era of PRI dominance, the president and the national bureaucracy had complete control over policymaking at the federal and state levels. Subnational political actors were required to toe the party line if they hoped to rise through the PRI hierarchy. When the country abandoned one-party rule, state legislatures and bureaucracies regained autonomy to pursue considerable changes in public policy. Abortion, a moral policy issue, became an area where there was stark variation across Mexican states. States where the Catholic Church was more powerful were more likely to ban abortions, whereas states where the “Partido de la Revolución Democrática” (PRD), a leftist party, was stronger were more likely to liberalize abortion restrictions.

3.2.2 Mexico City’s Legalization and Backlash

In 2007, Mexico City decriminalized abortion during the first twelve weeks of pregnancy, and provided abortion access for free in public hospitals and government clinics. Feminist mobilization and the PRD control of the city’s government explain this monumental step for reproductive rights expansion in the capital (Reference LamasLamas 2009). Mexico City’s decision to decriminalize abortion initiated a national debate about abortion policy, but instead of policy diffusion and adoption, the overwhelming trend was a backlash, as many states doubled down on abortion bans. When in 2008, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the City’s abortion law, several states amended their states’ constitutions to make abortion illegal, in some cases from the moment of conception, even in cases of rape and incest. Ultimately, the most notable consequence of Mexico City’s push to legalize abortion was that “by the end of 2009, 15 states had adopted a fetal life amendment … [and] by 2013, 17 states had a fetal life amendment” (Reference BeerBeer 2017: 54).

The dramatic variation in abortion laws across the states meant that based on where they live, some women were able to get a legal and free abortion, while others could face prosecution for murder for having an abortion.Footnote ⁴⁰ This inconsistency led feminist activists to pursue a judicial path to achieve consistency across Mexican states with regard to abortion decriminalization, in the absence of a viable strategy in the national legislature.

3.2.3 Abortion Legalization via the Judicial Path

Mexico is the country that birthed the concept and understanding of femicides as a result of the indiscriminate killing of women in Ciudad Juarez in the 1990s. The country’s experience with femicide and the women’s movements that made these killings visible had been working in the country consistently and uninterruptedly since Juarez with varying degrees of visibility.

The NUM movement was massive in Mexico, as evidenced by the throngs of women who attended the Las Tesis performance in the Zócalo. The growing visibility and strength of the feminist movement in the country has led to significant changes in how politicians refer to violence against women, and similar to Argentina, paved the way for bridging claims from femicide to reproductive rights. On March 9, 2020, thousands of Mexican women participated in a general strike to draw attention to femicide rates in a country where more than ten women are murdered every day (Reference AverbuchAverbuch 2020).

Abortion rights organizations steadily gained more traction, inspired by the reproductive rights movement unfolding across the region (Figure 12). The initial uptick in activism occurred in 2018, following NUM and the initial legislative debate in Argentina. In September 2019, Oaxaca state legalized abortion in the first twelve weeks of pregnancy, providing wind in the sails of the growing national movement. Days later, abortion rights groups staged a massive mobilization in Mexico City that tens of thousands of activists attended.

Figure 12 Abortion protests over time in Mexico

(2000–22)

The constant mobilization on the streets of the feminist movement was seen in full force as the Supreme Court of Justice considered the decriminalization of abortion in the country. Minutes after the Supreme Court’s 2021 ruling became public decriminalizing abortion, feminist activists in the streets celebrated their victory. The hashtags commemorating the Supreme Court’s decision became trends on Twitter – most of the hashtags (#QueSubaLaMarea) referred to the connection to the green wave feminist movements across Latin America. Most hashtags displayed green hearts symbolizing the color of the campaign for free and legal abortions, and activists displayed the green handkerchiefs during the street celebrations.

“Never again will a woman or a birthing person be prosecuted criminally. Today, the threat of imprisonment and the stigma that weighs on those who freely decide to interrupt their pregnancy are banished,” stated the Minister of the Court, Luis María Aguilar, author of the opinion. His words echoed changes in public opinion observed in the country as a result of feminist activism and mobilizations. In 2005, only 12 percent of the country favored the legalization of abortion in all cases, according to a survey by the research firm “Parametria.” A 2019 survey by the newspaper “El Financiero” found that nearly a third of Mexicans said they favor full legalization, and according to Ipsos more than half of Mexicans support abortion under certain circumstances, like danger to the life of the mother.

Politicians, regardless of their individual opinion about abortion, began changing their rhetoric to avoid taking polarizing positions on a controversial issue. For instance, asked about the issue hours before the Supreme Court’s ruling, Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, stated, “this is a question that women have to solve, the people have to solve it …. We have acted, in my case as President, with prudence and respect, because these are very controversial and polemic issues and we do not want to encourage any confrontation.” López Obrador’s response illustrates the new media strategy many politicians in the region are following. When in the past they expressed their opinions freely, they now risk angering a vocal abortion rights movement. In any case, feminist activists have not only changed policy but also the public and political discourse of the main actors in some of the countries with more clout in the region.

3.3.1 The Case of Rosa

Rosa was eight when she was raped in a farming town in the central highlands of Costa Rica. She was there with her parents, who were working as sharecroppers. When Rosa began feeling tired and sick, her mother took her to see a doctor. After three days of observing what they believed to be a child with anemia, the doctors realized that Rosa was pregnant. Although abortion is legal in Costa Rica to protect a mother’s health, social workers persuaded the family that Rosa should carry the child to term. Violeta Delgado, executive secretary of the Nicaraguan group that helped Rosa obtain the abortion, said that

When news of Rosa’s pregnancy became public through media coverage, Rosa’s future and her pregnancy became embroiled in domestic and international politics. It took some time for the family to return to Nicaragua, where more turmoil awaited. Nicaragua’s Health and Family Services ministers called on the family to force Rosa to give birth. The Catholic Church promised to provide care and housing for the infant. However, the family was worried that nine months of pregnancy would kill their only daughter. “We want this intervention to take place as soon as possible for her health and the well-being of our daughter,” her father told television stations.Footnote ⁴¹ The family requested a medical consultation because Nicaraguan law required three doctors to certify that the mother’s life was in danger before an abortion could proceed. Rosa and her family were kept in a safe house until the Attorney General ruled that the abortion was legal. A women’s group took Rosa and her parents to a private clinic, where she took the pill that induced the abortion. There were no medical complications.

Rosa’s case illustrated the power of antiabortion forces in Nicaragua. Powerful actors such as government ministers and the Church were willing to publicly go against the will of Rosa’s parents, who were poor and illiterate “campesinos,” to force their young daughter – the victim of rape – to give birth. The Minister of Family Affairs even called for Rosa to be taken away from her parents during the case, and the country’s highest-ranking public health official declared that abortion was a crime. The Catholic Church noted that excommunication was automatic for anyone involved in the abortion – including Rosa and her family. By choosing to oppose Rosa’s abortion publicly, the antiabortion movement successfully signaled their power and extreme opposition to reproductive rights expansion.

According to surveys carried out at the time, more than half of Nicaraguans (64 percent) thought that the nine-year-old should not be forced to carry a pregnancy to term (Reference VillegasVillegas 2003: 123). After the abortion, Rosa’s parents relocated to Managua, the capital, fearful that they would be ostracized if they returned to their small community. Rosa, who was nine years old when a therapeutic abortion saved her life in 2003, was victimized again, and, at fourteen years old, she had a baby. In 2007, Rosa’s mother reported to the Women’s Police Station that her husband had abused her daughter for several years and was the child’s father. The father recognized his paternity and left everyone wondering if Rosa’s first pregnancy was also a result of his abuse. A Costa Rican citizen and neighbor of the family accused of raping Rosa was found not guilty, leaving a sense of impunity.

3.3.2 Sandinistas’ Changing Views on Abortion Criminalization

Daniel Ortega, leader of the “Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional” (FSLN) returned to the presidency in 2006 after sixteen years out of power. His government was deemed part of a regional trend to the left defined as Latin America’s “pink tide.” At this time, there was a “real shift in the position of the Sandinista party, which had not legalized abortion when it was in power but had never before opposed therapeutic abortions” (Reference KampwirthKampwirth 2008: 125). Ortega’s views on abortion could be classified as ambivalent. Before his return to power, he opposed the practice due to its economic and political consequences, and not due to moral or religious convictions. Ortega envisioned abortion as an imperialistic tool for family planning to keep Nicaragua underpopulated and in a semicolonial state (Reference MorganMorgan 1990; Molyneux 2003). The antiabortion position he took in the 2006 presidential campaign contrasted with his previously held secular stance on most social issues (Reference KampwirthKampwirth 2008).

Before the election, Ortega publicly reconciled with the Catholic Church. This reconciliation explains his surprising closeness with the influential bishop of Managua, Cardinal Obando. In the past, Cardinal Obando and Ortega had sparred on a number of issues (Reference LordLord 2009), and many saw this change of heart as a strategic move. The Sandinistas agreed to ban abortions in exchange for the support and votes of religious voters in a close race (Reference ReplogleReplogle 2007; Reference KaneKane 2008).Footnote ⁴²

3.3.3 Sandinistas and the Women’s Movement

“The Nicaraguan women’s movement had a long history of being openly critical of the FSLN” (Reference Reuterswärd, Zetterberg, Thapar‐Björkert and MolyneuxReuterswärd et al. 2011: 818). Whereas they supported the movement during the Contra War, they criticized its neglect of women’s issues. By 1990, the divisions ran deep, leading women in the FSLN to declare themselves “autonomous” from the movement. The distance between the movement and the party widened further when the feminist movement supported Ortega’s stepdaughter’s accusation against him of sexual abuse since she was eleven years old (Reference KampwirthKampwirth 2008).

While opposing Ortega, a powerful populist leader, the movement found itself divided about what was going to be the most effective strategy to decriminalize abortion. Some within the movement thought that demanding the right to therapeutic abortion was the most they could ask for, “the maximum demand, and don’t even talk about legalizing abortion.”Footnote ⁴³ Others, in contrast, believed that the movement had been hurt by the moderation of their demands (Reference KampwirthKampwirth 2008). The feminist movement’s lack of unity in a strategy to fight for reproductive rights left them vulnerable against a stronger and united antiabortion movement.

3.3.4 Abortion and Ortega’s Return to Power

In 2006, discussions about abortion were at the center of the electoral campaign. The Conservative Party (PCL), headed by the incumbent president Enrique Bolaños, sought to retain power in a tight election against the FSLN (Reference GetgenGetgen 2008). Both parties supported a total ban on abortion. Whereas the most important women’s movement in Nicaragua, the “Movimiento Autónomo de Mujeres” (MAM), succeeded in securing the support of the Minister of Health, the professional medical association, the United Nations, and several international NGOs, they did not succeed in blocking the proposal (Reference KampwirthKampwirth 2008).

The Church is a key player in Nicaragua, with a sizable number of followers. Most career politicians were not eager to antagonize an important actor publicly by supporting a divisive and unpopular measure such as abortion. It also conducted mass-media campaigns, securing the support of the country’s leading newspaper, “La Prensa,” and staging a massive antiabortion rally in October 2006. Women’s movements tried to lobby politicians and use the law to support their claims, but politicians refused to meet with or hear them, and the Supreme Court ignored their charges of unconstitutionality. “The Church’s strategy largely succeeded and, in due course, won over twenty-five left-wing legislators who switched allegiance and withdrew their support for therapeutic abortion” (Reference GetgenGetgen 2008).

With the 2006 election nearing, religious leaders pressured legislators to pass the bill before the election. Even with the opposition of the European Union and United Nations agencies, and others who requested to wait to vote on the bill until after the election, the National Assembly rendered a unanimous decision ten days before the election to ban all abortions (El Nuevo Diario 2006): “By repealing Article 165, the new penal code outlawed therapeutic abortions, which had been allowed under Nicaraguan law since 1870. A new penal code was approved, which made Nicaragua the sixth country in the world and the third in Central America to enforce a total ban on abortion” (Reference Reuterswärd, Zetterberg, Thapar‐Björkert and MolyneuxReuterswärd et al. 2011: 821).Footnote ⁴⁴

When surveyed following the passage of the ban, most interviewees did not seem to understand what a complete ban on abortions meant, and when asked about medical interventions to save the mother’s life, they tended to disagree with the measure that the National Assembly had so hastily passed prior to the election.

In our exploration of abortion-related protests covered in the two largest newspapers in Nicaragua, we found little evidence of proabortion mobilizations occurring during the past decade. As the country trends toward authoritarianism, and Ortega continues to crack down on opposition parties and even critical civil society organizations (Freedom House 2022), it seems that the women’s movement might have missed any realistic opportunity to pressure the government to reinstitute therapeutic abortion in the foreseeable future.