September 14, 2021

Latin America’s contradictory reproductive rights

topic:	Abortion
located:	Mexico, Argentina, El Salvador, Honduras, Colombia
editor:	Ellen Nemitz

Less than a year after Argentina legalised abortion in December 2020, Mexicans celebrated their Supreme Court's decision to consider unconstitutional any criminal penalties against women who carry out pregnancy terminations in the state of Coahuila. Abortion laws vary across the country, with four states, including Mexico City, allowing abortion - even though the services are not always easy to access. Nevertheless, the unanimous decision from 7 September in the state of Coahuila may serve as an example to advance abortion laws in the rest of the country.

"We are all in favour of life,” stated Arturo Zaldívar, the president-minister of the court. “The only thing that happens is that some of us are in favour of the life of women being a life in which their dignity is respected, in which they can fully exercise their rights, in which they are free from violence, in which they can self-determine their destinies." 

Feminist movements hope that this might influence future decisions in countries such as Colombia, which will soon vote on the decriminalisation of abortion following a lawsuit posed by the organisation Causa Justa.

Nonetheless, the debates on whether life begins at conception or at birth are likely to continue shaping legislative decisions in many countries. 

Earlier this year, for instance, an amendment to the Honduran constitution determined that life should be protected since conception, thus barring any abortion legalisation in the future. According to the Human Rights Watch, Honduras has a very strict law on abortion, banning it even in cases of sexual violence or when the mother's life is at risk. Other Central American countries, such as Nicaragua and El Salvador, have similar rhetorical measures to impede abortion, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights. 

Furthermore, in Brazil, the conservative administration of Jair Bolsonaro is causing a wave of setbacks regarding sexual and reproductive rights.

In an article published in Brazil entitled "Legal Abortion, Sexual and Reproductive Rights in the Covid-19 Pandemic," three researchers investigated how the pandemic has encumbered women’s access to health services and abortion, including in cases of sexual violence and risk to the woman’s health, which are legal justifications. The article also mentions that Brazil and other five countries - including the US - have signed the Geneva Consensus Declaration on Promoting Women’s Health and Strengthening the Family, which opposes the right to abortion and defends "life since conception." 

"At first, the Declaration has no legal effect,” the researchers analyse. “But it ratifies the setback in the field of Sexual Rights and Reproductive Rights, in addition to weakening Brazilian diplomacy at the international level."

The path toward the complete and unrestricted right to abortion in Latin America is likely to be long and irregular. The recent victories in Mexico and Argentina must work as examples of respect to women's right to life, health and decision. As the Open Democracy article 'Anti-abortion laws: a war against poor women' explains,  while "poor, young and ethnic minority women" are the most affected by "physical and social costs imposed on them by the restrictive anti-abortion laws of Latin America," these laws do not reduce the number of abortions and serve only as a way of maintaining the so called "war against poor women."

Photo credit: Alejandro Munoz/Shutterstock

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