Anti-Abortion Mobilization in Latin America: Signs of a Field in Transformation

Abstract

Gender and sexuality have become a focal point of the political divide in Latin America. In many countries, religious actors, political leaders, pro-life and pro-family nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), among others, have come together to promote a neoconservative shift in contemporary regional politics. Despite the constant public presence of religious actors and their long-standing influence on public policies in the region, recent challenges to sexual and reproductive rights have come from a field in transformation. The anti-abortion mobilization shows important signs of adaptation and mutation on different fronts – networks, alliances, strategies, and frameworks. Finally, this process of renovation has led to the expansion of this dispute towards a broader anti-gender alliance, and the increasing importance of legal strategies and tools by anti-abortion actors is remarkable. The transformations in the anti-abortion field were globally put into action after the conservatives’ defeat in the UN Conference in Cairo, and they also interacted with different local processes, in response to the relational dynamics between movement and countermovement. However, we can see important convergences among Latin-American cases. Drawing on evidence from case studies of countries in the region, this article analyses the main characteristics of contemporary anti-abortion activism in Latin America. It identifies significant commonalities among the cases and raises the hypotheses that shifts in the composition of the anti-abortion networks, in mobilization strategies and frames are inserted in a trend that has been transnationally diffused and subject to different processes of vernacularization. This article ultimately calls attention to the need for more empirical research to address the regional dynamics of transnational actors, diffusion processes, and local adaptations.

¿Cómo cautiva a la juventud el neoconservadurismo? Rebeldía, formación e influencers de extrema derecha en Latinoamérica

“…Denominar a estos activismos como un movimiento o activismo "anti-género" borra su historicidad, y oculta la continuidad de la actual oposición organizada contra las demandas feministas y LGBTI con las anteriores configuraciones del movimiento, presentándolo como un fenómeno novedoso y prácticamente sin precedentes. Esto no quiere decir que no existan elementos renovados dentro de estos activismos, ya que los mismos han sabido adaptarse y actualizarse constantemente, complejizando sus formas de organización y su accionar (Machado, et al, 2022). Pero que las campañas y movilizaciones anti-género resulten cada vez más centrales dentro de los procesos de movilización contra los DDSSRR no quiere decir que este sea un movimiento definido por su oposición a las políticas de género.…”

“…A partir de los setenta, en Latinoamérica comenzó a generarse un activismo organizado en contra de procesos de ampliación de derechos vinculados con el género, la sexualidad y la reproducción (Morán Faúndes, 2017). Este activismo, autodenominado "pro-vida" o "pro-familia" por sus protagonistas, ha sufrido mutaciones a lo largo del tiempo que lo complejizaron, haciéndolo cada vez más heterogéneo en su composición, idearios y formas de acción colectiva (Machado, et al, 2022;Vaggione, et al, 2021).…”

Abortion as healthcare: The adaptability of medicalization and legalization in post‐repeal anti‐abortion politics

“…What are the changing formations of anti‐abortion actors and what are their local strategies in shifting legal contexts? Tracing and chronicling the transnational networks as well as the vernacularization of anti‐abortion movements is imperative to understand why progress in abortion rights is not linear, or a matter of moving forward or backward in time (Machado et al., 2022; Smyth, 2020).…”