Fighting for Abortion Rights in Latin America: Social Movements, State Allies and Institutions [1 ed.] 1000071421, 9781000071429

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Methods and Data Collection
The Argument
Variables and Cases
Literature Review and Definition of Concepts
Elite Allies and Issue Networks
Measuring Elite Allies
Movement Strength
Institutional Variables
Institutionalization of the Party System
Left-Wing Parties
Separation of Powers
Executive Preferences
The Power of the Catholic Church
Alternative Explanations
Public Opinion
International Factors
Who is the Subject of Abortion Rights? A Note on Language
Organization of the Book
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 1: Abortion in Latin America
Legal Status of Abortion in Latin America: Origins and Consequences
The Resilience of Abortion Restrictions
The Catholic Church, Gender and Abortion
Rising Evangelicals
Abortion: A Different Issue?
Timing Matters
Cross-Class and Cross-Gender Mobilization
Abortion Stigma
Human Rights in Dispute
Abortion in the Southern Cone
Regulating Abortion in Uruguay
Regulating Abortion in Chile
Regulating Abortion in Argentina
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 2: The Case of Uruguay: Working Together towards Comprehensive Abortion Reform
Political Context: An Institutionalized Democracy
Party System and Left-Wing Political Parties
Executive Branch and Separation of Powers
The Power of the Catholic Church
The Women’s Movement and the Fight for Abortion Reform in Uruguay
The Women’s Movement in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s
The 2001 Campaign to Legalize Abortion
Number of Organizations
Support of Key Social Actors
Media Presence
Public Opinion Support
Street Protests
Building Alliances with Congress
Phases of Collaboration Between the Movement and Allies in Power
The 2002 Bill
The 2006 Bill
The 2010 Bill
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 3: The Case of Chile: Co-Opting the Demand for Abortion Reform
Political Context: A System Closed to Reform
Party System and Left-Wing Political Parties
The Executive Branch and the Separation of Powers
The Power of the Catholic Church
The Women’s Movement and the Fight for Abortion Reform in Chile
The Women’s Movement in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s
New Initiatives for Abortion Reform
Number of Organizations
Support of Key Social Actors
Media Presence
Public Opinion Support
Street Protests
Women’s Movements and the Concertación: Tensions and Conflicts
Post-Democratic Transition (1990–2010): A Weak Movement and an Indifferent Party
Moderate Abortion Reform (2010–2018): Alliances, Co-optation and New Demands
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 4: The Case of Argentina: Political Indifference, Stasis and Resilience
Political Context: A Fluid, Unstable and Unpredictable Political System
Party System and Left-Wing Political Parties
Executive Branch and Separation of Powers
The Power of the Catholic Church
The Women’s Movement and the Fight for Abortion Reform in Argentina
The Women’s Movement in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s
The Campaign for Legal, Safe and Free Abortion
Number of Organizations
Support of Key Social Actors
Media Presence
Public Opinion Support
Street Protests
Political Indifference: A Challenging Political Context for Civil Society–Government Collaboration
Early Experiences (1980s–1990s)
Néstor Kirchner Administration (2003–2007): High Expectations in a Promising Political Context
Expanding Access: Feminist Activists and the Health Ministry
A Woman President (2007–2015): Hopes Deflated
Fears of Co-Optation: Mistrust Towards the Political System
Cardenal Bergoglio and Pope Francis I
Empty Signatures: Weak Commitment from Congress
Increasing Access through the Judiciary: The 2012 F.A.L. Case
Collaboration with Provincial Health Ministries
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter 5: Conclusion: Abortion Reform in the Southern Cone – Beyond the Pink Tide
Major Findings of the Study
Implications of the Theoretical Model
Generalizability: Moving Beyond the Three Case Studies
Beyond the Pink Tide: Collaboration and Abortion Reform under Right-Wing Governments
Argentina: The Green Tide and the 2018 Debate on Abortion Reform
Future Steps
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

“Written with perception and commitment to gender studies and feminist claims, this book is an intensive comparison of abortion legal reforms in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. At the core of the different paths taken by the countries is the intersection between the feminist movement and women in politics.The attention given to this linkage – from close collaboration to weak and even absence of ties – offers new hypotheses to understand the complexities of approving highly morally charged women’s rights.” — Ana Laura Rodríguez Gustá, National University of General San Martín “Abortion rights activists in the Southern Cone, like their counterparts elsewhere, face the challenge of navigating relationships with legislators and government officials. Cora Fernández Anderson’s systematic case comparison and historically sensitive approach sheds light on the dynamic nature of these alliances and their role in policy reform during a rising tide of protest in the region.” — Elizabeth Borland, Professor of Sociology,The College of New Jersey “This is a timely and thoughtful study of post-millennium abortion politics in the southern cone.” — Merike Blofield, Professor of Political Science, University of Hamburg

FIGHTING FOR ABORTION RIGHTS IN LATIN AMERICA

Although they share similar socio-economic and cultural characteristics as well as recent political histories,Argentina, Chile and Uruguay differ radically in their abortion policies. In this book, Cora Fernández Anderson examines the role social movements play in abortion reform to show how different interaction patterns with state actors have led to three different policy outcomes: comprehensive abortion reform in Uruguay; moderate abortion reform in Chile; and no legal abortion reform in Argentina. Synthesizing a broad range of literature and drawing on in-depth field and archival research, she analyzes the strength of the campaigns for abortion reform, their relationships with leftist parties in power and the context of Church–state relations to explain this diverging trajectory in policy reform. A masterly analysis of how social movements, the power of institutions and Executive preferences have strong explanatory power, Fighting for Abortion Rights in Latin America is a perfect supplement for classes on gender and global politics. Cora Fernández Anderson is Assistant Professor of Comparative Politics at Mount Holyoke College. Her research interests are in social movements, reproductive rights and Latin American politics. Her research explores social mobilization as a possible path towards social change. She has published her work in academic outlets such as the Journal of Women, Politics and Policy, NACLA Report on the Americas and Politics, Groups and Identities.

FIGHTING FOR ABORTION RIGHTS IN LATIN AMERICA Social Movements, State Allies and Institutions

Cora Fernández Anderson

First published 2020 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park,Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Taylor & Francis The right of Cora Fernández Anderson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this title has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-35595-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-35596-8 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-34049-9 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

To Omar

CONTENTS

List of illustrations

x

Acknowledgments

xi

Introduction

1

1 Abortion in Latin America

32

2 The Case of Uruguay:Working Together towards Comprehensive Abortion Reform

66

3 The Case of Chile: Co-Opting the Demand for Abortion Reform

97

4 The Case of Argentina: Political Indifference, Stasis and Resilience

130

5 Conclusion:Abortion Reform in the Southern Cone – Beyond the Pink Tide

169

Index

188

ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures 2.1

Number of Street Protests for Abortion Reform in Uruguay (2000–2013) 3.1 Number of Street Protests for Abortion Reform in Chile (2000–2017) 4.1 Number of Street Protests for Abortion Reform in Argentina (2001–2018)

80 115 148

Tables 1.1 Abortion Reform Bills in Uruguay: 1985–2012 1.2 Abortion Reform Bills in Chile: 1990–2019 1.3 Abortion Reform Bills in Argentina: 1983–2019 4.1 Bills Introduced by the National Campaign for Safe, Legal and Free Abortion in Argentina: 2008–2018

50 53 58 158

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book has been many years in the making. My first thoughts on abortion rights movements go back as far as 2006, when I was writing the prospectus for my dissertation. As such, I have many different people to thank. Starting chronologically, the first people that supported this project were many wonderful professors at Notre Dame where I completed my Master’s and PhD. These include John Paul Lederach, Guillermo O’Donnell, David Cortright, Michael Coppedge and Debra Javeline.All of them and others shaped my thinking in important ways. However, Frances Hagopian and Scott Mainwaring deserve a special thank you. Scott was the first one to patiently guide me through the adventures of academic writing during my Master’s thesis and continues to support my work in various ways. Fran was my dissertation advisor and close mentor who has supported me every step of the way from the moment I started the dissertation until this very day. Fran is the dissertation advisor everyone dreams of getting in graduate school but most people rarely do. Her tireless dedication to her students – returning draft after draft with detailed, thoughtful comments – is incredible and continues to inspire me in my relationship with my own advisees. I also owe a debt to sociology professor Rory McVeigh. His was the first course I took on social movement theory and this topic has become my passion ever since. My time at Notre Dame was special and formative not just due to my professors but also the wonderful relationships with fellow students. I want to acknowledge my friends in the PhD program Carlos Gervasoni, Kunle Owolabi, Lucrecia Garcia Iommi, Kate Schuenke and Kristin Krause, who shared many moments of stress and joy throughout our years as graduate students. After graduation, my research on abortion reform continued through a threeyear Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellowship on Comparative Reproductive Politics through the Five College Consortium at Amherst, Massachusetts. I am grateful

xii

Acknowledgments

to so many colleagues in the area who acted as mentors throughout this period and provided me with a rich intellectual community. Among them I would like to specially mention Lynn Morgan, Marlene Fried, Betsy Hartmann, Laura Briggs and Javier Corrales. Once at the Politics Department at Mount Holyoke, my colleagues have been an invaluable source of support, advice and mentorship: Andy Reiter, Preston Smith, Kavita Khory, Calvin Chen,Ali Aslam,Adam Hilton, Sohail Hashmi, Chris Pyle, Chris Mitchel and Liz Markovits. Their support reading earlier versions of these chapters and sharing samples of book prospectuses has been so important in this process.Aside from their professional support, their friendship, chats in the hallway and overall good sense of humor have made my days working in the office much more enjoyable. I also want to thank my students. I have been teaching a class called “The Politics of Abortion in the Americas” since 2011 in the Five College Consortium. Both the preparation for this course and my interactions with them in the classroom have also shaped my thinking for the book and I want to give credit to my students for this. In particular I want to thank three of my former students, Mary Bean, Ambar Mejia and Daiana Griffith, who worked for me as research assistants for this project. Finally, I want to thank Mount Holyoke College and the Dean of Faculty Office for grants I was awarded to conduct field research and edit this volume. Throughout the years I have presented parts of this research in many venues: the Midwest Political Science Association, the Latin American Studies Association, Law and Society, the Five College Faculty Seminar in Reproductive Politics. I have greatly appreciated the thoughtful feedback on my work from Barbara Sutton, Nayla Vaccarezza, Liz Borland, Alba Ruibal, Catalina Smulovitz, Jennifer Piscopo, Jennifer Nye and Carrie Baker. During the years that I have worked on this project I have conducted extensive field research.The numerous people I interviewed, from movement activists, legislators and academics to health professionals, all have offered their time very generously and I am forever indebted to them for this.Among those, I particularly want to acknowledge Ruth Zurbriggen in Argentina, Alejandra López Gómez and Rafael Sanseviero in Uruguay and Lidia Casas in Chile. A special thank you to my editor Will Ryan. His patience and support throughout the final stages of this book have meant it is much more readable than my initial drafts. All the readers should be particularly grateful to him! Natalja Mortensen and Charlie Baker from Routledge have also provided invaluable support through the publishing process and I am thankful for their trust in this project from the start. I want to thank also the anonymous reviewers for this manuscript.Their comments gave me new insights and made this book stronger. Finally, I want to acknowledge artist Sebastián Angresano, who very generously allowed me to use his art for the cover of this book. A final thank you to all my family and friends. They have all been such an important part of this process, hearing about it for so long, putting up with my ups

Acknowledgments

xiii

and downs throughout, celebrating my successes and being there too for the times of frustration and writing blocks. Of my friends I want to specially mention Majo Chena, Macarena Méndez Parnes, María Roldan, Natalia Bergoglio, Graciela Monteagudo, Laura Ginzberg-Peltz, Jennifer Rulf, Aimee Velasco, Alejandro Velasco and Mary Strunk.A special thanks to my sister María Luz, who has always shown her support and interest for my work. Thank you also to my husband’s family, in particular Khetam and Ayham, who have been my only family in the US and as such have always been there when I needed them. My Mom deserves special recognition. She has been, as in everything I did in my life, a constant presence and a rock. Her love has guided me through life with confidence and a sense of purpose and commitment I doubt I would have without her. In particular, the help she provided with our children has many times allowed me to keep deadlines and to travel to conduct interviews and present in conferences. This is also true of my Dad, who passed away in 2005. He left us before I even began this project, but his love throughout my childhood and early adulthood gave me the confidence I needed to pursue this project. He would have been so proud of this book and he would have probably embarrassed me multiple times boasting my accomplishments in front of other people. Our two children, Isaf and Ismael, have been the source of so much happiness. Despite the time they have taken away from what could have been “writing time,” they have infused my life with more passion and love and sense of purpose, which made this book much stronger than what it could have been otherwise. I still cherish the days writing on the computer while holding them in the baby carriers. Finally, so much of this book happened because of my husband Omar. His unconditional love and support, the confidence he always had in me at times when I had none, his desire to see me succeed in my career – it has all been the most important help I could have to get this book done. On top of his love, he has since day one been my personal editor, reading and giving feedback on every single piece of writing I’ve done since we met in graduate school. For this and for everything you’ve given me, this book is dedicated to you.

INTRODUCTION

In late October of 2008, feminist activists gathered each night until long after midnight in the hallways of the parliament building in Montevideo, Uruguay.The women had literally “camped out” so they might work around the clock with left-wing legislators to ensure the success of the bill for Sexual and Reproductive Health that was being debated in the Uruguayan Congress. Included in the bill was a clause that legalized abortion in the first trimester – a major achievement for the movement. Alejandra López Gómez, a longtime MYSU1 activist, later recalled those days as: working in Congress all day and all night … there were 8 or 9 of us … we basically set our secretariat in the offices of the block of the Frente Amplio [left-wing political party] and that became our operational base.2 For women’s reproductive rights and freedom, the atmosphere had never been more co-operative and exciting, the possibility never more real. Seven years later, in 2015 and on the other side of the Andes, in Santiago de Chile, reproductive rights activist Claudia Dides, executive director of MILEs,3 painted a very different picture of movement–government relations: It is a pity that this government has been working in an environment of secrecy around this bill, an initiative that actually began in civil society, within women’s and academic organizations and that the government later includes in its agenda.4 Activists’ frustration with the secrecy that surrounded President Bachelet’s negotiations to advance abortion rights was clear.

2

Introduction

The contrast in relations between legislators and activists in the two stories illustrates the differing access social movement activists have when interacting with government officials in their campaigns for policy reform, even when these governments belong to left-wing parties. This book tries to understand the reasons for and consequences of such a gulf in distance. From these considerations a number of questions emerge: How does policy reform happen and what are the roles of social movements and progressive governments in that process? What historical and contextual factors explain the ability or inability of social movements to access the policy-making elite? To what extent are these factors structural or contingent on social movement choices? Which critical contextual factors seem most likely to mediate the success or failure of social movements in their quest to achieve policy reform? These questions have generated burgeoning literatures that explore matters of social movement outcomes, as well as women’s public policy. Scholars of social movement outcomes generally argue that “elite allies in power” increase the chances of policy reform success. Since social movements cannot translate their protests directly into policy, they rely on government allies to support their demands and advance policy reform. Scholars of women’s public policy agree but use the concept of “issue networks” instead to describe these coalitions of activists, legislators and state officials pushing for policy reform in a particular issue area. In these studies, “elite allies in power” or “issue networks” have been for the most part treated as the independent variable that explains the existence or lack of policy reform.Through a study of women’s movements in Uruguay, Chile and Argentina I demonstrate how those alliances do in fact improve the chances of policy reform. The close alliances between movements and policy-makers in Uruguay, as the opening anecdote illustrates, did result in more significant policy reform than did the more distant relationship in Chile, and in Argentina as well. This book goes beyond taking alliances as a given or a binary that either exists or does not and examines their origins to present a more in-depth explanation of social movement outcomes, one that understands and explains the alliances themselves. In particular I explore the following questions: How are relationships between social movements and government allies built and developed? Under what circumstances are alliances most likely available to a movement? Even when available, are they always desired and pursued by the movement? Which kind of relationships lead to addressing social movements’ demands in a comprehensive way and which ones do not? Which contextual factors in the political system affect the characteristics these relationships will have or if they can be established at all? With these research questions as a starting point, this book problematizes the notion of civil society and government collaboration and treats it as a dependent variable that needs to be explained. I do so through studying the campaigns for abortion reform in three Latin American countries, Uruguay, Chile and Argentina, and their interaction with left-wing governments from the turn of the century

Introduction

3

until 2017. The book traces three distinct paths of interaction that resulted in different policy reforms (or lack thereof) and provides an explanation for these outcomes. I demonstrate how both individual variables such as Executive branch preferences, and institutional factors such as the characteristics of the country’s party system, leftist parties and the separation of powers, shape the possibility and ability of social movements to establish relationships with allies in power – that could in turn increase their chances of policy reform and having their demands addressed. Alliances with sympathetic actors in power may not always occur.The conditions for their establishment are not always present. Alternatively, alliances are not always desired or pursued by social movements.The fear of co-optation and the lack of trust in political parties has increasingly left movements to choose more autonomous and alternative paths to achieve policy reform. The case of Argentina in particular will illustrate new movements’ strategies to achieve de facto reform without de jure policy reform or through creative interpretations of existing laws. For many years scholars studied the relationship between social movements and policy reform through the analysis of activist–government elites collaborations.This book aims to explain the conditions under which these collaborations are possible and ultimately advance our understanding of movement–government relationships in the process of policy reform.

Methods and Data Collection This book provides an in-depth, qualitative comparative analysis of the interaction between women movements and government allies in their struggle for abortion reform in three different countries.The cases have been chosen based on a most similar design (John Stuart Mill).The three countries share similarities in terms of their economic, social, cultural and political history, but differ with regard to the status of their abortion policy and the presence or absence of abortion reform. The three – Uruguay, Chile and Argentina – form part of a sub-region within Latin America known as “the Southern Cone,” which has some special features of its own. For one, the countries comprising this sub-region have a similar culture that emerges from a common colonial history.The Southern Cone represented a peripheral area of the Spanish Empire. Uruguay, Chile and Argentina achieved independence during the early 1800s and began organizing as nation-states in the second half of the nineteenth century. At the turn of the twentieth century the region witnessed a large wave of immigrants from Southern Europe and the Ottoman Empire, and the newcomers merged with the predominantly mestizo population. The three countries have, moreover, shared key political processes, particularly in the last 50 years.They have experienced bureaucratic authoritarian dictatorships in the 1970s (O’Donnell 1983), democratic transitions during the 1980s, neoliberal policies in the 1990s

4

Introduction

and left-wing governments at the turn of this century. Economically and socially speaking, they have the highest index of human development in the region, with strong middle classes, high levels of education and professionalization and strong traditions of mobilization and activism.As with the rest of Latin America, colonization brought with it the presence of the Catholic Church, which has remained a key political actor in the region ever since. At the same time, however, these countries have very different abortion policies. Uruguay has comprehensively reformed its abortion policy. It is the only country in Latin America, aside from Cuba, that has, since 2012, passed legal abortion on demand during the first trimester. Chile’s experience between 1989 and 2017 could not have been more different: It was one of seven countries in the world (five in Latin America) that banned abortion under all circumstances. It has since experienced a moderate abortion reform allowing the practice when there is a threat to the life of the woman, fetal malformations incompatible with life outside the womb and when conception was the result of rape. Finally,Argentina has allowed legal abortion when there is risk to the mother’s health and life and when conception was the result of rape since 1921, and has seen no abortion reform since.The countries thus differ in both the presence or absence of abortion reform, and the content of such reform; together they offer a composite approach that when viewed comparatively may bring into focus the different paths taken by activists and government allies in their way to policy reform. Following George and Bennett (2005), the book’s methodology is that of a structured and focused comparison. The comparison is systematic, asking the same questions about all the cases under study so as to standardize the data collection.The research is focused in that it will examine one particular aspect of the historical cases:The interaction between women’s movements and their government allies in their struggle for abortion reform (George and Bennett 2005: 67). The main collection of data took place during two consecutive years (2007–2008), during which time I lived in Argentina and traveled to Uruguay and Chile for extended field research visits. I followed up with multiple trips to the region during 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018 to further study the movements and the political developments of these cases. Over this 11-year period, I conducted numerous interviews with movement activists, government officials and academics. I observed movements’ activities and congressional sessions and analyzed movements’ documents and congressional minutes from plenary and committee sessions, and followed the cases in the local media. I intend my book to offer a contribution at different levels. It first advances the theoretical understanding of the alliances between movements and governments. How are the alliances constructed and what are their dynamics? What makes them more feasible in certain institutional contexts than others? With such considerations, my research adds to the literature on social movement outcomes and on women’s public policy. Neither literature has sufficiently interrogated the formation of these alliances in depth and explored the conditions behind their existence.

Introduction

5

Within the literature on social movements outcomes scholars have mostly focused on the study of one movement in one country (Tarrow 1998; Kane 2003; Soule and Olzak 2004; Olzak et al. 2016). Few scholars have conducted comparative studies of social movements’ outcomes (Kriesi et al. 1995; Giugni 2004; Kolb 2007; Bosi et al. 2016), and most of those have focused on Northern industrialized countries. My research tests the theories on allies in power in the developing world.The literature on women’s public policy has explored the role of women in and out of the state in advancing women’s rights, but has mostly studied these alliances as an independent variable of policy change (Costain 1992; Stetson and Mazur 1995; Ferree and Martin 1995; Weldon 2002; Waylen et al. 2013; Htun and Weldon 2012 and 2018). My study interrogates the origins of these alliances, turning them into the dependent variable. In addition, this is a story about women’s public policy and, in particular, abortion reform in Latin America.The two main books that have given comprehensive explanations on this particular issue have focused on the developments of the 1990s (Htun 2003; Blofield 2006). But both the movements for abortion rights as well as the political context within these countries have changed substantively since then.There has been no major comparative work on this issue beyond the year 2000, notwithstanding the significant increase of women’s mobilization and the coming to power of left-wing governments in the region.This book aims to fill this gap.

The Argument This book argues that abortion rights movements in the Southern Cone have established different interaction patterns with state actors, which have in turn led to three different policy outcomes around abortion reform in each case. • • •

ollaboration between the movement and sympathetic leftist legislators leading C to comprehensive abortion reform: Uruguay. Little to no collaboration and co-optation of movement demands by the Executive branch leading to the passing of a moderate abortion reform: Chile. No collaboration and political indifference from the Executive and Legislative branches leading to no legal abortion reform: Argentina.5

In light of these three cases I state the first hypothesis to explain the first dependent variable. Co-operation between a social movement and sympathetic government officials increases the chances for comprehensive policy reform. How do we now explain the presence or absence of co-operation between civil society and government actors? I argue that the likelihood of each of the

6

Introduction

patterns presented above is mediated through the interaction of the following variables: • •

• •

strength of the social movement and its strategies institutional-level variables: the institutionalization of the party system, characteristics of leftist parties and coalitions, and division of powers between government branches individual-level variables: Executive preferences on the movement’s demands the power of counter-institutions: in this case, the Catholic Church, in each national context

Social movements have been found to be key actors in activating the political process that leads to policy reform in the arena of gender and moral issues (Weldon 2002; Haas 2010; Diez 2015; Htun and Weldon 2012).Throughout Latin America, non-bread-and-butter issues such as abortion have, for the most part, no weight in people’s decisions at the ballot box; perceptions regarding the economy and anti-crime policies mostly dictate their preferences.6 It follows that in the absence of a social movement that defines the issue (such as abortion), organizes around it and demands government attention to it, politicians see no electoral value in addressing it – and thus usually prefer to ignore it. For most of this period, abortion was perceived as politically costly, a risky issue, commonly referred to as ‘pianta votos.’7 The result has been a general stasis and lack of policy change, which has only broken when a social movement emerges and succeeds in introducing the issue in the political and societal agenda. But the emergence of such a social movement alone is insufficient to produce policy change.The literature on social movements outcomes confirms that a movement requires sympathetic allies in power to actually prompt policy reforms (Kriesi et al. 1995;Tarrow 1998; Kane 2003; Soule and Olzak 2004; Giugni 2004; Meyer 2004; Kolb 2007;Amenta el al. 2010). Because social movements lack power vis-à-vis the state (Piven and Cloward 1979), they cannot translate their protests directly into policy without the help of political insiders or allies. In agreement with social movement scholars, the literature on women’s public policy has examined the relationship between social movements and state actors through the concept of issue networks (Htun 2003; Reutersward et al. 2011) defined as “elite coalitions of lawyers, feminist activists, doctors, legislators and state officials, that bring about policy change” (Htun 2003: 5).This leads us to the second hypothesis. The stronger the social movement, the better the possibility of generating support from government officials and establishing a close co-operation with them that will lead to policy reform. In their struggle for policy reform social movements can gather support from three government actors: the Legislative branch, the Executive branch and/or

Introduction

7

technocrats within specific ministries and government agencies. Major policy change can happen mostly through the Executive and the Legislative branches but not the latter. As will be discussed in the case of Argentina, technocrats can design programs that might broaden the interpretation of the existing law in a way that addresses some of the movements demands, but they cannot legislate and produce policy reform.Thus, the key places for movements to look for alliances are the Legislative and Executive branches. When seeking allies within the Legislative branch, institutional variables play a relevant role. In this case, the level of institutionalization of the party system, the presence of a leftist party (with roots in society) and a strong division of power provide the movement with a political environment conducive to establishing collaborations with legislators in power, which leads to the following hypotheses. •

•

•

The higher the level of institutionalization of the party system and internal party structures, the more likely the social movement will find a stable clear interlocutor within the Legislative branch to build relationships with in pursuing its demands.The lower the level of institutionalization of the party system and internal party structures, the more relationships with state actors will depend on individual personalities and preferences of party leaders and Executive positions in government. The existence of a strong leftist political party with roots in society increases the likelihood the social movement will find a clear interlocutor and institutional channels set up to build a relationship and interact with in the pursuance of their demands. On the contrary, the presence of an electoral-professional leftist party with no roots in society or institutionalized channels to receive input from civil society groups and organizations will diminish these chances. The stronger the division of power between government branches, the more likely the movement will be able to create relationships with legislators to advance their demands without interference from other branches, particularly the Executive. This hypothesis accounts for both formal and informal institutions that rule the separation of power between branches.The weaker the division of power, the more Executive preferences on the issue will influence discussions in Congress.

Congress can become a valuable ally for the movement and its collaboration can lead to comprehensive policy reform. However, in presidential systems like the ones in this study, Executive branch support of the movement’s demand for policy change might be a faster road to policy reform. Executive branches under presidential systems have strong agenda-setting powers. In the case of Executive support, the movement has the possibility of a straight channel of communication with the most powerful political position.Thus, a sympathetic Executive reduces the significance of other institutional and contextual variables that otherwise can play a significant role when establishing a relationship with the Legislative branch.

8

Introduction

For example, if the Executive embraces the movement’s demands, a low level of institutionalization of the party system and less division of powers might play in favor of the policy reform.The lack of institutionalization would allow the Executive to push for its policy preferences within its party and in Congress and disregard party institutions and the division of powers among branches.The support of the Executive for policy reform might be so strong as to trump the opposition of a politically strong Catholic Church. Executive support for reform is particularly key in the final stages of the proposed reform when it is necessary to get enough votes for the bill to be passed in Congress. In these situations, the Executive’s informal powers to sway undecided legislators through electoral promises, selective incentives or issue linkage can make the difference between a reform being approved or not. A clear example of how Executive support helped the passing of policy reform has been Argentina’s same-sex marriage law. After the LGBT movement launched a strong campaign that introduced a bill in Congress, the final success of the bill was ensured by President Fernández de Kirchner, removing from the Senate floor some of her party’s legislators who would have otherwise voted against it.8 The lack of Executive support from the Macri administration in the 2018 abortion debate in Argentina prevented the bill from being approved despite the overwhelming presence of the movement and supporting allies in Congress.The following hypothesis states that: the stronger the Executive support for the movement’s demands, the larger the possibility for comprehensive policy reform. In this situation, the lack of institutionalization of the party system and the lack of separation of powers between the governing branches will increase chances for policy reform. However, a sympathetic Executive also carries a risk: co-optation.The Executive may want to ensure that policy reform is managed and advanced in a way that does not threaten its own political and electoral priorities, redefining the movement’s goals and demands. While co-optation might happen through collaboration with the Legislative branch as well, the concentration of power in the Executive makes it the more likely site. Fears of co-optation have driven some movements away from seeking alliances with those in government and many times have divided movements over these strategic decisions. Thus, Executive preferences need to be analyzed in detail to define the level of alignment with those of the movement, and the presence or lack of common motivations among these actors. When the Executive supports the movement’s demands there is a higher likelihood of the movement’s cause being co-opted and redefined based on the Executive electoral and political needs, risking a deradicalization of the original reform proposal.

Introduction

9

When support is denied from both the Executive and the Legislative branches, movements can still reach out and collaborate with technocratic agencies in their area of interest. In the case of leftist administrations, as is the case of the three country cases during most of the last 17 years, technocratic positions may be filled with individuals from social movement organizations and NGOs. These individuals might even be part of the campaign for policy reform, in which case the movement gains what the literature refers to as “institutional activists” (Tilly 1978; Pierson 1994; Pettinicchio 2012). This concept refers to outsiders (social movements’ activists) that have become insiders (government officials) and bring to their government position the movement’s demands and perspectives. This can also happen with political parties’ candidates, though less frequently. While technocrats cannot for the most part produce a change in policy, they can draft documents, and launch and implement government programs that address the movement’s demands within the current legal framework. Again, this path of collaboration tends not to produce policy change, but it can provide increased benefits to the movements’ constituents and an implementation of current laws and government programs in line with the movements’ goals and demands. A final consideration exists independent of the political orientation of the individual actors in government – the reach and power of the Catholic Church.This reality creates different incentives for politicians to situate towards the movements’ demands. •

•

politically weak Catholic Church increases the chances of the movement A for abortion reform establishing a relationship with state actors, given that those in power can act without fears of Church-inspired political and personal reprisals. A politically strong Catholic Church will place obstacles in the creation of relationships between the social movement and state actors given that politicians will take into consideration the political costs associated with pushing for legislation that goes against the Church’s doctrine.

These four variables – movement strength, institutional variables, Executive preferences and the power of the Catholic Church – interact and affect each other, creating different scenarios. While ideally those advocating for policy reform obviously want a strong movement, strong institutionalization of the political system, a supportive Executive and a weak Catholic Church – a situation close to what happened in the case of Uruguay in 2012 – the situation rarely lines up that way in the region. Among the four variables, some are more likely to experience change than others, making them more likely to open up possibilities for reform than the rest. Namely, the strength of the movement and Executive preferences are the variables more likely to change often.The institutionalization of the political system and the power of the Catholic Church tend to vary more gradually and in the

10 Introduction

long term.This does not imply that countries with a low institutionalization and a strong Catholic Church are condemned to see no policy reform; rather, that it would be less likely, more difficult and the other two variables (strength of the social movement and Executive preferences) will have to do most of the heavy lifting. Some of these scenarios present throughout the region are discussed in Chapter 5.

Variables and Cases The variables discussed above explain the presence or absence of alliances between social movements and allies in power, and the way these paths resulted in different kinds of abortion reform or in no policy change at all. In Uruguay, the close collaboration between women activists and leftist legislators allowed for a successful abortion reform that in 2012 legalized abortion on-demand during the first trimester.The campaign for abortion reform launched in 2001 explicitly designed a strategy of collaboration with sympathetic allies. Uruguay’s highly institutionalized party system, the deep social roots of the leftist party Frente Amplio and the strong division of powers, coupled with a neutral Executive and a weak Catholic Church, all combined to build a successful alliance between activists and legislators – and that resulted in a comprehensive abortion reform. After a nearly 30-year total ban on abortion instituted by former dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1989, the Chilean Congress liberalized the abortion law in August 2017.The new legislation permitted abortion in cases that posed a risk to the woman’s life, in which conception was the result of rape, and/or where fetal malformations incompatible with life outside the womb were detected. During the 30-year ban, the movement was divided on how to advance reform. While women activists were responsible for introducing the issue to the societal agenda, there was little collaboration with the leftist parties in power to advance legislative reform. Instead, a leftist administration headed by Socialist Michelle Bachelet introduced its own abortion reform bill, limited interaction with civil society campaigns and through secret negotiations ensured the support from her governing coalition and secured a moderate reform. The professional character of the Socialist Party in Chile and its lack of roots in society, the complexities of coalition governments, together with a powerful Catholic Church, all worked together to explain the difficulties that an alliance between activists and leftist parties in power experienced in Chile.The co-optation of the movement’s initial proposal left activists with no voice in significant phases of the political process and as a consequence moderate reform resulted – and not surprisingly has been deemed insufficient by many activist organizations. Finally, Argentina has seen no modification to its 1921 Criminal Code, which allows legal abortion in cases of threat to the woman’s life or health, or when conception resulted from rape. Despite the presence of a strong campaign to legalize abortion, which has introduced a bill for abortion reform in Congress every year

Introduction

11

since 2006, the movement has found no strong support within the Legislative or Executive branches during the administrations of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández. Under their governments, the movement-sponsored bill was never discussed, let alone voted on, beyond congressional commissions.The movement has been divided over the question of how to interact with allies in power. The low level of institutionalization of the party system, the lack of a strong, national-level leftist party, a weak division of powers, opposition to abortion from the Executive and the existence of a politically strong Catholic Church all worked to prevent the creation of an alliance that could push abortion reform forward through Congress. In light of the political indifference the movement has received during this period, activists have diversified their strategies and pursued alliances with technocratic agencies in health ministries both at the federal and provincial levels. These have resulted in no policy change, but these steps have led to the drafting of health protocols that have increased access to abortion within the same legal framework.

Literature Review and Definition of Concepts Two main literatures speak directly to the main questions raised in this book:The literature on social movements outcomes, which has mostly focused on studying cases within advanced industrial democracies, and that of women’s public policy, particularly those studies that focus on Latin America. This section introduces both literatures, considers their relevance to the current research and offers a discussion of the concepts they have developed to explain policy change. In addition, this section discusses the main dependent and independent variables identified in this study, their definitions and ways of measuring them.

Elite Allies and Issue Networks The literature on social movements has traditionally focused on explaining the emergence of protest, an effort that has led to the development of the main theories in the field: Resource mobilization (McCarthy and Zald 1977), political process (McAdam 1982; Tarrow 1998), and cultural and framing approaches (Snow et al. 1989). Once a neglected area of research, the impact of social movements on state policy has increasingly drawn the attention of scholars in the last three decades (Amenta et al. 1992 and 1994;Tarrow 1993; Giugni et al. 1999; Cress and Snow 2000; Soule and Olzak 2004; Giugni 2004; Bosi et al. 2016; Amenta and Caren 2019). When it comes to advancing a movement’s cause, scholars have debated the significance of the internal characteristics of a movement (membership, organization, strategies) (Gamson 1975; Schattschneider 1960; Cobb and Elder 1972; Andrews 2001) versus the impact of the external context (political opportunities, public opinion support) (Burstein et al. 1995; Kriesi et al. 1995; Kitschelt 1986; Tarrow 1998).Within the branch that focused on political external factors, one of

12 Introduction

the variables that has received increasing attention is that of “elite allies,” meaning actors within the state that work in collaboration with the movement to achieve policy change (Kriesi et al. 1995; Tarrow 1998; Rucht 1999; Kane 2003; Soule and Olzak 2004; Giugni 2004; Olzak et al. 2016). Because social movements lack power vis-à-vis the state (Piven and Cloward 1979), they cannot translate their protests directly into policy without the help of these political insiders (Rucht 1999).When a government sympathetic to the movement is in power, the chances of its demands being addressed are higher (Kriesi et al. 1995). The literature on women’s public policy has centered upon questions of women’s participation in politics, and the analysis of policy areas related to the role of women in society. Scholars studying global gender policy have explained the advancement of women’s rights as a function of different factors:The strength of women’s movements, the presence of women’s state agencies, left-wing governments in power, women’s participation in politics and the evolution of international norms (Costain 1992; Ferree and Martin 1995; Stetson and Mazur 1995; Weldon 2002; Htun and Weldon 2012 and 2018). Particularly relevant to this study are the efforts of scholars considering the role of women’s movements as opposed to that of women within the state in advancing these policies (Haas 2010; Banaszak 2010; Lycklama et al. 1998;Waylen et al. 2013; Htun and Weldon 2012 and 2018). Some scholars emphasize the relevance of women’s movements, highlighting their key role in articulating and defining new issues, and raising awareness around them (Weldon 2002; Htun and Weldon 2012). Others have found that women’s state agencies are fundamental in addressing women’s issues, and that movements’ actions do not lead to reform in the absence of women’s policy machineries (Stetson and Mazur 1995). A third group of scholars, while acknowledging the relevance of activism, point to the value of the interaction between women in and outside the state – what has been referred to as the “jaw strategy” or the “triangle of empowerment” – or, put another way, the combined efforts of feminists within the legislatures, ministries and civil society (Lycklama et al. 1998; Haas 2010; Ewig and Ferree 2013). Within the literature on gender politics, the studies on abortion policies in Latin America have explained policy reform by focusing on different variables:The role of the Catholic Church (Htun 2003; Blofield 2006), public opinion, economic inequality (Blofield 2006), institutional factors (Htun 2003; Haas 2010; Blofield and Ewig 2017), the strength of social movements (Htun and Weldon 2012 and 2018). Similar to the literature on social movements’ outcomes and that on gender politics more broadly, this branch has also focused on the alliance between non-state and state actors, referencing them with the concept of “issue networks” (Htun 2003; Reutersward et al. 2011). Originally crafted by Heclo (1978) within the literature on interest groups, issue networks first appeared in Htun’s book analyzing moral policy in the countries of the Southern Cone (2003). She defines issue networks as “elite coalitions of lawyers, feminist activists, doctors, legislators and state officials, that bring about policy change” (Htun 2003: 5). In his analysis

Introduction

13

of same-sex marriage in Mexico,Argentina and Chile, Diez utilizes the notion of the network but departs from Htun’s definition (2015).According to Diez, Htun’s concept focuses on elite actors and does not fully recognize that “the formation of networks is the result of the efforts made by activists” (2015: 9). Borrowing Diez’s modification of Htun’s concept, this book stays within the tradition of the literature of social movements’ outcomes and treats movement activists as actors with agency who can decide whether or not they want to establish alliances and work together with state actors. In my numerous interviews, activists and state allies alike highlighted the complex dynamics of policy reform. Women activists complained about how party loyalties and electoral concerns prevented feminist politicians from advancing abortion reform as required by the movement. Feminist politicians, for their part, complained that activists did not understand the political dynamics and times that need to be taken into consideration when working within the state.The use of concepts such as issue networks not only erases the agency of the social movement but also limits the understanding of the logics present in working from within or outside the state.The fact of being an elected government official or a bureaucrat creates new interests and motivations that are different from the incentives activists have within civil society, no matter how united by feminism those in or out of the state might be.The notion of “allies in power” or “sympathetic allies” allows for this differentiation.

Measuring Elite Allies The opportunity to form political alliances has been identified as one dimension of the political opportunity structure (McAdam 1996) and thus many scholars have used it as a variable to explain the impact of social movements on state policy. Most studies have measured this variable in terms of the percentage of movement sympathizers (leftist or green parties, for the most part, given their historical commitment to egalitarianism and women’s political participation) in the government at a particular point in time (Rucht 1999; Giugni 2004; Soule and Olzak 2004; Kane 2003). Other scholars have defined movement sympathizers as those politicians who have supported the movement as evidenced by their attendance at the movement’s protests and initiatives they have undertaken from positions of power to address the movement’s demands (Cress and Snow 2000). Left-wing governments and their possible alliances with the women’s movement have also been explored by studies on women’s public policy as a potential variable (Stetson and Mazur 1995; Htun and Weldon 2012 and 2018). Conventional wisdom considers left-wing parties more likely to nominate and elect women, given their focus on egalitarianism. Studies on the Latin American Left, however, disagree on the extent to which this tendency holds across the whole region (Alles 2014; Jones et al. 2012; Funk et al. 2017). According to Funk et al., Pink Tide governments have not strengthened quota laws, nor have they elected more women to office than have right-wing governments. In terms of left-wing

14 Introduction

parties embracing women’s demands, studies have found contradictory evidence as well.While this alliance appeared to be the case in the Northern industrialized countries (Stetson and Mazur 1995), a larger global database suggested that more generally the presence of left-wing parties appeared to be more relevant to those gender issues that overlap with class, such as child care facilities or funding for reproductive rights services, especially when compared with non-class issues such as violence against women or family law (Htun and Weldon 2012 and 2018). In line with Htun and Weldon’s analysis, in the study of these trends in Latin America, results are mixed and support of left-wing governments for gender policies differed depending on the issue. While Pink Tide governments advanced gender equality policies – increasing, for example, the income of women – they have many times rejected the expansion of reproductive rights (Friedman 2009 and 2019; Blofield et al. 2017).The type of left-wing party thus matters, and this is considered when analyzing the cases in the present study. When studying gender policy reform, scholars have also measured the “structure of gendered opportunities” (Soule and Olzak 2004), a concept that refers to the number of women in the Executive and Legislative branches.There is agreement within the literature on gender policy that an effective way to increase the number of women in power is to implement gender quotas (Craske 1999; Lovenduski and Norris 1993; Franceschet et al. 2012). Latin America has been a pioneer in the implementation of gender quotas,Argentina being the first country in the world to do so in 1991. Since then, the rest of the countries have followed, with the exception of Guatemala. In 2018, 28.9% of congressional seats were held by women, compared to a world average of 23.8%. Latin America is home to three of the four countries with the greatest proportion of women in congress in the world.9 There is a debate within this field, however, about whether an increase in the number of women in power actually translates into a higher likelihood that progressive gender policies will result, a development referred to as substantive representation (Chant and Craske 2007; Htun and Jones 2002; Franceschet et al. 2012; Johnson and Taylor 2014). Htun and Weldon suggest that a larger number of women in power is unlikely to have a substantive effect without other factors being present such as feminist movements, political parties and international pressures (2018). Many have argued that the passage of quotas for women in legislatures in Latin America has not necessarily brought to power more sympathizers of gender policies (Htun and Jones 2002; Weldon 2002). As more conservative women have been elected to office, research has been forced to pay attention to the ideological diversity among women politicians and the more nuanced consequences of the increasing number of women in power (Kampwirth and Gonzalez 2001; Haas 2010).Thus, scholars have looked at left-wing party affiliation and feminist orientation of the women in power to identify those who are most likely to advance women’s rights (Htun and Power 2006). It is worth noting that women in conservative parties are still more progressive on gender issues than their male colleagues (Carroll 2001).

Introduction

15

A second way of measuring the structure of gendered opportunities is to consider the presence or absence of women’s state agencies. In their study of women’s ministries across postindustrial countries, Stetson and Mazur (1995) conclude that these agencies are necessary for successful policy reform.They acknowledge that these agencies’ impact depends on their leadership, structure and the interaction or lack thereof with the women’s movement. In Latin America, however, these institutions have faced larger challenges in terms of their lack of autonomy, funding and appointment of conservative women as leaders – often making them irrelevant in the advancement of women’s rights, particularly when it comes to controversial issues such as abortion (Caldeira 1998; Baldez 2001; Franceschet 2003; Haas 2010). All of these indicators identify availability of allies for the movement, and they represent a good start in the process of measuring the existence of state supporters.This book focuses on the presence of left-wing parties in power as potential allies, and also discusses the presence of women in power, particularly within these left-leaning parties, since scholars have already highlighted the significant role of feminist politicians working within their political parties in advancing legislation on women’s rights (Haas 2010). However, giving numbers and percentages of these two potential allies to the women’s movement is not enough to test the impact allies might have in advancing abortion reform. My field research was key to understanding whether this availability translated into an actual collaboration between movement activists and their potential allies. The numerous interviews conducted for this study offer evidence of the existence or lack of meetings and alliances between them and allow us to see in detail how and under which conditions these collaborations take place. My hope is that such an in-depth analysis of these processes – similar to those in Diez’s book (2015) – will constitute an original contribution to our understanding of social movements and policy reform.

Movement Strength Within the literature on gender policy, the strength of women’s activism has been found to be a critical force for policy reform across regions of the world (Banaszak 1996; Costain 1992; Disney and Gelb 2000; Ferree and Martin 1995; Stetson and Mazur 1995;Weldon 2002; Htun and Weldon 2012 and 2018). Measuring a movement’s strength, though, has been difficult. Most scholars have defined it in terms of the level of mobilization, operationalized as the number of protest events in a given period (Burstein and Freudenburg 1978; Giugni 2004), or in its level of organization, operationalized as the number of members, chapters in a given territory or the financial resources of the movement (Weldon 2004; Kane 2003; Giugni 2004; Soule and Olzak 2004; Paxton et al. 2006; Johnson and McCarthy 2005). These measures have limitations.While social movements’ main repertoire of action is the street protest (with the goal of disrupting the social order), this is

16 Introduction

not their only strategy. In addition, it is important to know the number of people attending each protest event to have an idea of the level of support the movement has at any point in time. Research has found that protest size matters more than protest frequency (McAdam and Su 2002). In terms of accounting for the number of organizations, membership and budgets, these measures are limited to account for formal organizations that are closer to an NGO than the multitude of informal organizations that exist within a social movement. In an attempt to address some of these limitations and attend to the complexity of the concept, scholars studying women’s movements’ strength have combined these original dimensions with new ones. In their study of policies addressing violence against women, Htun and Weldon (2012 and 2018) combined qualitative and quantitative data and measured movement strength based on narrative accounts of scholars, number and membership of women’s organizations, massive protests and media presence. Mazur et al. have measured movements’ mobilization by taking into consideration both formal and informal networks, combined with the level of institutionalization defined as the presence of the movement in government institutions (Mazur et al. 2016). In light of these scholarly works and based on the availability of sources for the country cases analyzed in this book, I define movement strength using a combination of the following indicators: 1) Academic accounts on the strength and unity of the women’s movement and the abortion reform campaign in each case; 2) the number of organizations involved in the campaign; 3) the support the campaign has received from other social actors; 4) the media presence; 5) the public opinion support for the campaign’s demands; and 6) the number and size of protests.These multiple indicators compensate for the lack of data for some years and address the different expressions of each of the movements in terms of their level of formality or informality or the strategies chosen – without identifying one specific modality with that of strength or weakness. For example, the Uruguayan campaign did not have as large a street presence as did the movement in Argentina, but it still had a strong public opinion support and media presence, which, under this definition, makes it a strong movement.

Institutional Variables During the last 25 years, institutional perspectives within political science have been examining how the configuration of governing institutions, such as electoral rules, federalism, presidentialism, party systems and the separation of powers, impact political practice and policy change (Skocpol 1992; Carey 1997; Mainwaring and Scully 1995; Mainwaring and Shugart 1997). Institutions matter because they affect the distribution of power and influence how civil society interacts with the state. Scholars have applied the insights of this institutionalist perspective to the study of gender and moral policies (Htun 2003; Diez 2015; Blofield and Ewig 2017). Institutional arrangements influence the level of access, interaction patterns and

Introduction

17

the possibilities of working together with the state women’s movements might have. Several institutional variables, in particular, need to be taken into consideration with respect to the question of collaboration of women’s movements with politicians, among them the institutionalization of the party system, the presence and characteristics of leftist parties and coalitions and the separation of powers between government branches.

Institutionalization of the Party System The characteristics of the party system condition the kind of relationships women’s organizations can establish with Congress in their struggle for abortion reform (Waylen 2000; Htun 2003; Blofield 2006). In her analysis of gender politics in Argentina and Chile, Georgina Waylen notes that women activists can be more effective in exerting pressure in the presence of an institutionalized party system since “it is clearer where the pressure points are and any changes to the rules can be enforced more easily” (Waylen 2000: 790). The level of institutionalization of a party system is defined as the stability and meaningfulness of political parties, their roots in society, their ideological stability and the level of electoral volatility (Mainwaring and Scully 1995; Mainwaring 2018). As stated by Mainwaring, an institutionalized party system “shapes the future expectation and behavior of political elites, masses and other actors” (Mainwaring 2018: 4). In this sense, an institutionalized political system in which parties matter, have continuity over time and can be easily positioned along the ideological spectrum allows civil society organizations to have clear and stable interlocutors.

Left-Wing Parties The presence of a strong leftist party in power also increases the chances of abortion reform (Blofield 2006; Blofield and Ewig 2017). Scholars agree that the Left is usually more sympathetic towards feminist demands than other parties (Ellickson and Whistler 2000; Rozell 2000). However, scholars also agree that the type of left-wing party matters when analyzing their impact on reproductive rights (Friedman 2009; Blofield and Ewig 2017).Three aspects of left-wing parties need to be considered when analyzing the chances of alliances with women’s movements:Their roots in society, their religious or secular character and the presence of feminist politicians. First, when parties have strong roots in society, there are institutional channels already set in place that link civil society and parties, allowing a more stable and fluid interaction between them. On the opposite end of the spectrum, leftist parties can lack these institutions, thus providing grassroots organizations and movements with no channels for interactions with points of power. These are what political scientists call “electoral professional parties” (Pribble 2013).

18 Introduction

Second, the presence of a religious party within the Left can alter predictions and assumptions about leftist parties’ behavior. Latin American religious left-wing parties align with Catholic doctrine on family and reproductive issues.This factor goes a long way to explaining why a Center-Left coalition has been in power in Chile for all but two administrations since the 1989 democratic transition, but there was no progress in terms of abortion reform until 2017.The presence of the Christian Democrats in the governing coalition was one of the reasons preventing any change to the total ban on abortion. Finally, scholars have shown that the presence of feminist activists within leftist parties increases the likelihood that the party will include gender issues in their platforms and agendas (Matland and Studlar 1996; Caul 2001; Haas 2010).These feminist party cadres can work as a liaison with the feminist movement in the absence of institutionalized channels that connect the party to grassroots organizations, thus increasing the chance of collaboration between activists and party members.

Separation of Powers The division of power among government branches can also affect the alliances that are possible between the movement and state actors. Latin American countries have a history of strong conflict between Executive and Legislative branches, making this factor particularly relevant (Carey and Shugart 1998). Liesl Haas, one of the few scholars who has looked into how this relationship affects feminist policy-making, identifies how the powerful tools awarded to the Executive branch in Chile allow for control of Legislative agendas.As a result, only those bills backed by the Executive have a good chance of passing in Congress (2010). Given the conflicts characterizing the relationships between branches of government, Executive preferences play an important role in the dynamics of abortion reform.

Executive Preferences Latin American countries have strong presidential systems in which the institution of the presidency is key in setting the government agenda and formulating policies (Mainwaring and Scully 1995; Mainwaring and Shugart 1997). According to Mainwaring and Shugart (1997) presidential strength relies on both constitutional and partisan powers. Constitutional powers can be proactive (such as decree power) or reactive (as in total and partial veto power). Based on their constitutions, the three country cases have strong presidential systems, though they vary slightly in terms of the powers each of their Executives are assigned. Chile’s president has decree and strong veto powers together with the exclusive right to introduce certain types of legislation.Argentina’s president has decree and strong veto powers but does not have the exclusive right to introduce legislation. In Uruguay the president has strong veto powers, the exclusive right to introduce legislation, but no decree powers.

Introduction

19

Partisan powers are the abilities to shape the legislative process through the disciplining of the party in congress (Mainwaring and Shugart 1997). That is, the power of the Executive is also influenced by the level of party discipline, and the presence or absence of a congressional majority. Abortion, being an issue within “the politics of morality,” has been considered a matter of one’s own conscience, not a party issue. Regardless, there have been political parties in both Chile and Uruguay that have imposed party discipline when abortion reforms were voted on, making this an important consideration when analyzing the preferences and powers of the Executive branch. Aside from formal powers, presidents have informal resources that increase their influence on congressional debates and the approval of bills. Among those are the Executive’s superior resources in terms of technical expertise and staff in comparison with Congress, its lobbying power and access to congressional committees during debates.These have resulted in a general larger rate of approval of bills introduced and supported by the Executive than those that lack this support (Siavelis 2000; Haas 2010). Scholars have highlighted the significance of the presidents’ position in the abortion debate (Htun 2003; Blofield 2006). Presidential opposition has been a main obstacle for decriminalization campaigns throughout Latin America. With the exception of current Argentine President Alberto Fernandez, no president in the Southern Cone countries, or more broadly in the whole region, has stated his/her support for abortion liberalization based on the woman’s autonomous decision.The presidents’ timidity as both candidates and chief executives in supporting abortion decriminalization suggests that it is still perceived as politically risky for a president to come across as supporting such a policy. I measure such “Executive preferences” using presidents’ public statements on the issue of abortion. Presidents can be against abortion reform, in which case they constitute a veto player to the process; they can be in favor, in which case reform is sped up due to Executive’s strong powers under presidential systems; or they can be neutral, allowing the discussion to proceed in Congress without much interference.

The Power of the Catholic Church As with most issues considered part of the politics of morality – a field that includes all policies that deal with life-and-death decisions, sexuality and self-determination (Mooney 1999; Meier 1999; Mourao Permoser 2019) – the strength of religious institutions, particularly the Catholic Church in Latin America, is a significant factor in understanding policy change on abortion (Blofield 2008; Haas 2010; Htun and Weldon 2018).A more secular society, in which the Catholic Church lacks political influence, might allow for politicians to freely address reproductive rights issues and establish relationships with abortion reform campaigns without fearing condemnation from the Church. In a society in which the Church still holds strong societal and political power, politicians are more careful when addressing

20 Introduction

reproductive rights issues for fear of antagonizing this institution – and ultimately damaging their political careers. The literature has looked into the role of the Catholic Church as one important variable in explaining abortion policy through the use of the following concepts: secularism, Church–state relations (Borland 2004), Church–government relations (Htun 2003; Borland 2004), religiosity (Hagopian 2009; Blofield 2006), and used different indicators to measure each of them. In an effort to address the numerous potential channels of influence the Catholic Church has on the abortion debate I use multiple measures and analyze which ones hold more explanatory power. The power of the Catholic Church will be initially assessed through the institution’s hegemony in society (Hagopian 2009) and the formal relationships between Church and state.These assessments will then be supplemented with the analysis of more informal measures of influence such as the links the Church has with economic and political elites (Blofield 2006; Haas 2010). In addition, since this book focuses on the alliances between activists and state actors, I will also analyze the availability of allies for the counter-movement, in these cases mostly led by the Catholic Church. For example, one of the ways the Church has attempted to influence society and elites has been through religious education. The Church has recognized its interest in Catholic education as one of its key missions in numerous documents.10 The extensive networks of Catholic educational institutions at all levels is evidence of the Church’s determination to instill Catholic values in the people of Latin America. Analyzing the different reach that Catholic educational institutions – in particular, universities – have in the education of political elites is yet another way of measuring the Church’s political influence. Catholic universities in particular have become a significant channel to educate future leaders in areas relevant to reproductive rights: Law and medicine.To measure the availability of allies for the counter-movement I code legislators in the three countries on whether they had a secular or religious university education.The higher the percentage of political elites educated by Catholic universities, the larger their exposure to Catholic teachings and the less their contact with feminist theories and notions of reproductive rights.This does not imply that a Catholic education automatically places politicians in the anti-choice camp but it does offer an index on the possible influence that the Church has on educating political elites and steeling them against any sympathy for reform in matters of reproductive rights.

Alternative Explanations Some of the common factors identified in the public policy literature as key variables for policy change, such as the direct role of public opinion (Barreiro Pérez Pardo 2000; Burstein 1998; Page and Shapiro 1983) or international factors (Keck and Sikkink 1998; Finnemore and Sikkink 1998), challenge the relevance of social movements on policy change and thus the significance of their alliances with

Introduction

21

those in power. However, both public opinion and international factors have been found in this study to be either not significant or to be mediated by the variables highlighted, e.g., social movement strength.

Public Opinion There is an assumption that public opinion has a strong impact on public policy in democratic societies, and scholarly work has offered considerable evidence supporting this view (Erikson et al. 2002; Page and Shapiro 1983). At the same time, some scholars have challenged this assumption, showing that studies have overestimated the power of public opinion and that government responds more to special interests than the majority of the public (Burstein 2005; Page 2002; Gilens and Page 2014). In fact, when it comes to abortion reform, many scholars have challenged the very relevance of public opinion as an explanatory variable. A 2006 review of 26 public opinion studies of abortion in Latin America concluded that the region’s restrictive laws did not reflect the general support for decriminalization (Yam et al. 2006). In her book on abortion reform in Catholic countries, Blofield (2006) found that Latin American countries still awaiting abortion reform have larger levels of public opinion support for decriminalization than Spain had in the 1980s right before decriminalization. Her research demonstrated how in Spain support for decriminalization followed rather than preceded policy reform, challenging the direction of the causal link between public opinion and policy change (Blofield 2006). In Latin American countries, politicians prefer to avoid any political costs associated with raising the issue of abortion, despite growing support for decriminalization among society.The reluctance to discuss the abortion bills during electoral campaigns makes this clear (Johnson 2011). Only after the national campaigns for abortion reform made abortion “an issue” can we find more data on public opinion support from society. Put another way, people might have an opinion on abortion, but in the absence of a movement for abortion reform, politicians have no way of knowing what public opinion is or where their constituents stand on it, and thus could remain unaffected by it. A good example of this phenomenon can be seen in the case of Uruguay and Argentina, where public opinion became more favorable to decriminalization only after the campaigns for legalization were launched, suggesting a positive relation between the movements’ activities and increased support for reform. Other scholars have found similar results in the US context (Banaszak and Ondercin 2016). In the case of Chile, the abortion reform campaign launched by MILEs appeared as a response to academic research done by feminist activists that showed an overwhelming support among the population for the legalization of abortion under certain circumstances. In this case, while women’s activism was not behind increasing the support for legalization among Chilean society, it had a significant

22 Introduction

role in measuring public opinion and making it known to the wider public in support of their abortion reform campaign. Finally, there is a large limitation in the study of public opinion on abortion across the three cases. There are no longitudinal studies conducted across the three countries with a similar methodology and similar questions. The closest available is the World Values Survey, which has asked systematically the same questions in each of its waves since the 1980s. However, the question chosen relates to the approval of the practice of abortion, not the approval of a particular policy on abortion (decriminalization or criminalization).This value-based question does not accurately indicate support for specific abortion policies and tends to over-represent those against the practice without giving precise information about policy options. Research has already shown how the formulation of the question in such sensitive topics can alter results (Yam et al. 2006).

International Factors Scholars have highlighted the way international norms and standards of appropriate behavior embraced by a significant number of states can have an impact on domestic policy change (Keck and Sikkink 1998; Finnemore and Sikkink 1998). In the case of gender policy, scholars consider the influence of international treaties on women’s rights as well as regional demonstration effects or pressures to conform to certain standards (Htun and Weldon 2018). International events such as the regional September 28 Campaign to Decriminalize Abortion in Latin America launched in 1991, as well as the Cairo and Beijing United Nations conferences in the mid-1990s, have surely provided a supportive environment for abortion reform. However, the fact that Uruguay is the only country besides Cuba to have legalized abortion in the region points to the larger significance of domestic factors in the explanation of these processes.As Htun and Weldon state in their study on activism around violence against women, the impact of global norms is conditional on the presence of domestic women’s movements (2012 and 2018).Thus, international treaties and conferences advancing women’s rights need local advocates embracing them and bringing them to the national arena to effect actual policy change. In addition, the global context has not been particularly kind to the side of women’s rights. The transnationalization of the abortion discussion has created opportunities not only for feminists but also for anti-choice activists to create networks and to share resources and strategies (Htun 2003). If anything, the international context suggests more recently a movement in the opposite direction, as evidenced by the wave of criminalizing policies that banned therapeutic abortion in Honduras (1997), El Salvador (1998), Nicaragua (2006) and the Dominican Republic (2009), as well as the restrictions implemented in some Mexican states that followed abortion reform in Mexico City (2007).The international climate of criminalization was reinforced during the first decade of the new millennium

Introduction

23

by US policies under the George W. Bush administration (2001–2009) and later by the Trump administration (2017–2020), which banned federal funding for international non-governmental organizations involved with providing and advising on abortions or even advocating for abortion decriminalization (1984 Mexico City policy), and also indirectly through its support of anti-abortion discourses and the increasing restrictions at the state level of access to abortion.The end of the twentieth century saw the emergence of conservative activism at the global level led by American Christian Right organizations advocating for the “natural family” to counter what they perceived as the United Nations’ feminist and gay agenda (Buss and Herman 2003) more recently labeled “gender ideology” (Miranda Novoa 2012; Corredor 2019).

Who is the Subject of Abortion Rights? A Note on Language Historically the term “women” has been used to refer to those that are directly affected by the issue of abortion and those that have been active in the movement for abortion reform. This is the term that has been used until the present in the legal field to draft regulations on abortion and in the field of reproductive health to track the impact of those regulations on women’s health. Activists have historically used the term “women” as well. They understood the criminalization of abortion as a way of controlling women’s bodies, felt themselves part of the women’s movement and pushed for this reform as a way of asserting and advancing women’s rights.The slogans and frames upheld by activists referred to women’s right to choose over their own bodies, and the need to stop the death of women through unsafe abortions. In the last decade, the mobilization of trans people and the advancement of trans rights in the form of gender identity laws both worldwide and in the region brought with it a discussion about who is the subject of abortion rights. Those who support a more inclusive language emphasize the need to acknowledge that not all those that can get pregnant identify as women, and that not all women can get pregnant and thus need an abortion. A preference for more neutral language that refers to “people,” “patients” or “people that can get pregnant” emerged among health care providers and activist organizations alike. But these changes generated strong resistance among those who refuse to abandon the language of “women.” Those behind this position argue that the overwhelming majority of those affected by the way abortion is regulated identify as women and that women have historically been at the forefront of this struggle. They thus refuse to adopt a language that erases women as the main subjects of this fight (Pollitt 2015; Smith 2019). This book uses the term “women” when referring to those that are affected by the issue of abortion and those active in the movements for abortion rights.This choice is grounded on the language that activists used in the three countries during

24 Introduction

the time period studied here. The discussions on language were not present in Uruguay given that legal reform took place in 2012, a time when the reference to “women” was not contested. It was not present in Chile either, where the existing total ban on abortion called for moderate frames to advance reform.The discussion on language around abortion rights has emerged, though, within the campaign for abortion reform in Argentina but not during the period analyzed here. According to Sutton and Borland, internal discussions around language emerged as early as 2014. These concerns only made an appearance in public documents in 2016 (Sutton and Borland 2018). In this case, the decision to change language was gradual. In the 2016 bill, activists decided to continue using the language of “women” while including a statement acknowledging that the right to abortion should be granted to all people that can get pregnant. In 2018 a revised version of this bill used the term “women and people that can get pregnant” each and every time when referring to those who have the right to abortion and are affected by state regulations of the practice. With the growth of non-binary identities, it is possible to envision a further shift in the future in which the word “women” might be abandoned completely among movements for abortion rights and replaced with more neutral language. However, given that this book provides an analysis limited to a particular historical moment (approximately the first 15 years of the twenty-first century depending on each of the countries), it is only fair to respect the language and frames that activists have chosen to use in their struggle to advance abortion rights throughout this period.This by no means implies a denial of abortion rights to individuals that can get pregnant but do not identify as women.

Organization of the Book The book is a comparative analysis of three cases. Chapter 1 provides a description of the status of abortion in the region and explains the reasons why abortion reform has encountered so many obstacles. It also provides a history of the legal status of abortion in each of the country cases to provide a context to the analysis provided in the empirical chapters. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 present the qualitative analysis of abortion reform in each of the cases. Chapter 2 discusses the case of Uruguay and its successful abortion reform, highlighting the close collaboration between the women’s movement and legislators from the left-wing party Frente Amplio. Chapter 3 introduces the case of Chile and explains the lack of policy change during most of the years since the 1990 democratic transition and the recent moderate reform.The chapter analyzes the relationship between women’s movements and the Center-Left electoral coalition Concertación through two time periods: from 1990 until the year 2000, and from the beginning of the new century until the 2017 reform. Chapter 4 discusses the case of Argentina and explains the lack of abortion reform under the Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner administrations. It also explores the diversification of the women’s

Introduction

25

movements’ strategies and the search for allies in the state bureaucracy, which resulted in no policy reform but an on-the-ground increase in access to abortion within the current legal framework. Chapter 5 discusses the implications of the theoretical framework for the literature on social movements’ outcomes and gender politics, and explores the future of abortion reform in the new political scenario in Latin America today with the coming to power of right-wing governments, particularly through the case of Argentina and the 2018 congressional debate under the Macri administration.

Notes 1. MYSU stands for Mujer y Salud Uruguay (Women and Health Uruguay). 2. Interview with Alejandra López Gómez, MYSU, Montevideo, Uruguay, September 5, 2009. Author’s translation. 3. MILEs stands for Miles por la Interrupción Legal del Embarazo (Thousands for the Legal Interruption of Pregnancy). 4. Claudia Dides interviewed by CNN Chile, January 19, 2015. Viewed at www.cnnchile.com/noticia/2015/01/19/claudia-dides-aseguro-que-existe-secretismo-yhermetismo-en-torno-al-proyecto-de-ley-sobre-aborto. 5. The book analyzes the case of Argentina during the administrations of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández, and does not include the 2018 Congressional debate under the Macri administration.An analysis of these recent events based on the book’s theoretical model is provided in the Conclusion. 6. See Latino Barómetro. 7. Expression in the Southern Cone that refers to an issue that scares voters away. 8. There are also stories that say that Néstor Kirchner got together with his legislators and told them directly: If you want to be re-elected, vote in favor of the same-sex marriage bill. Interview with legislator, Buenos Aires, October 2012. 9. The countries are Cuba, Bolivia and Mexico. Council of the Americas infographic. Viewed at www.as-coa.org/articles/infographic-women-politics-latin-america. 10. On Christian Education (1885), Declaration on Christian Education (1965), To Teach as Jesus Did (1972), among many others.

Bibliography Alles, Santiago. 2014. “Ideología partidaria, competencia electoral y elección de legisladoras en cinco democracias latinoamericanas: Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Peru y Uruguay, 1980–2013.” América Latina Hoy 66: 69–94. Amenta, Edwin and Neal Caren. 2019.“The Legislative, Organizational and Beneficiary Consequences of State-Oriented Challengers.”In David Snow,Sarah Soule and Hanspeter Kriesi, eds. The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Amenta, Edwin, Neal Caren, Elizabeth Chiarello and Yang Su. 2010.“The Political Consequences of social Movements.” Annual Review of Sociology 36: 287–307. Amenta, Edwin, Bruce Carruthers and Yvonne Zylan. 1992. “A Hero for the Aged? The Townsend Movement, the Political Mediation Model and US Old Age Policy, 1934–1950.” The American Journal of Sociology 98 (2): 308–339. Amenta, Edwin, Kathleen Dunleavy and Mary Bernstein. 1994. “Stolen Thunder? Huey Long’s Share Our Wealth, Political Mediation and the Second New Deal.” American Sociological Review 59 (5): 678–702.

26 Introduction

Andrews, Kenneth. 2001. “Social Movements and Policy Implementation: The Mississippi Civil Rights Movement and the War on Poverty, 1965–1971.” American Sociological Review 66: 71–95. Baldez, Lisa. 2001. “Coalition Politics and the Limits of State Feminism in Chile.” Women and Politics 22 (4): 1–28. Banaszak, Lee Ann. 1996. Why Movements Succeed or Fail: Opportunity, Culture and the Struggle for Woman Suffrage. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Banaszak, Lee Ann. 2010. The Women’s Movement Inside and Outside the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Banaszak, Lee Ann and Heather Ondercin. 2016. “Public Opinion as a Movement Outcome:The Case of the US Women’s Movement.” Mobilization 21: 361–378. Barreiro Pérez Pardo, Belén. 2000. Democracia y conflicto moral: La política del aborto en Italia y España. Madrid: Ediciones ISTMO. Bimbi, Bruno. 2011. Matrimonio igualitario. Intrigas, tensiones y secretos en el camino hacia la ley. Buenos Aires: Espejo de la Argentina Planeta. Blofield, Merike. 2006. The Politics of Moral Sin: Abortion and Divorce in Spain, Chile and Argentina. New York: Routledge. Blofield, Merike 2008. “Women’s Choices in Comparative Perspective: Abortion Policies in Late Developing Catholic Countries.” Comparative Politics 40 (4): 399–419. Blofield, Merike and Christina Ewig. 2017.“The Left Turn and Abortion Politics in Latin America.” Social Politics 24 (4): 481–510. Blofield, Merike, Christina Ewig and Jennifer Piscopo. 2017. “The Reactive Left: Gender Equality and the Latin American Pink Tide.” Social Politics 24 (4): 345–369. Borland, Elizabeth. 2004. “Cultural Opportunities and Tactical Choices in the Argentine and Chilean Reproductive Rights Movements.” Mobilization 9: 327–229. Bosi, Lorenzo, Marco Giugni and Katrin Uba. 2016. The Consequences of Social Movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Burstein, Paul. 1998. “Bringing the Public Back In: Should Sociologists Consider the Impact of Public Opinion on Public Policy.” Social Forces 77: 27–62. Burstein, Paul. 2005. “Why Estimates of the Impact of Public Opinion on Public Policy Are Too High: Empirical and Theoretical Implications.” Social Forces 84 (4): 2273–2289. Burstein, Paul and Rachel Einwohner and Jocelyn Hollander. 1995. “The Sources of Political Movements:A Bargaining Perspective.” In Craig Jenkins and Bert Klandermans, eds. The Politics of Protest. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Burstein, Paul and William Freudenburg. 1978. “Changing Public Policy: The Impact of Public Opinion, Antiwar Demonstrations and War Costs on Senate Voting on Vietnam War Motions.” American Journal of Sociology 84 (1): 99–122. Buss, Doris and Didi Herman. 2003. Globalizing Family Values:The Christian Right in International Politics. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Caldeira,Teresa. 1998.“Justice and Individual Rights: Challenges for Women’s Movements and Democratization in Brazil.” In Jane S. Jaquette and Sharon L.Wolchik, eds. Women and Democracy: Latin America and Central and Easters Europe. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press. Carey, John. 1997. “Institutional Design and Political Party Systems: Aggregate and Individual Level Effects.” In Larry Diamond and Marc C. Plattner, eds. Consolidating the Third Wave Democracies. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press. Carey, John and Matthew Shugart, eds. 1998. Executive Decree Authority. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

Introduction

27

Carroll, Susan. 2001. The Impact of Women in Public Office. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Caul, Miki. 2001.“Political Parties and the Adoption of Candidate Gender Quotas:A Cross National Analysis.” The Journal of Politics 63 (4): 1214–1229. Chant, Sylvia and Nikki Craske. 2007. Género en Latino América. Mexico DF: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social. Cobb, Roger W. and Charles Elder. 1972. Participation in American Politics. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Corredor, Elizabeth. 2019.“Unpacking ‘Gender Ideology’ and the Global Right’s Antigender Countermovement.” Journal of Women in Culture and Society 44 (3): 613–638. Costain, Anne. 1992. Inviting Women’s Rebellion:A Political Process Interpretation of the Women’s Movement. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press. Craske, Nikki. 1999. Women and Politics in Latin America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Cress, Daniel M. and David A. Snow. 2000. “The Outcome of Homeless Mobilization: The Influence of Organization, Disruption, Political Mediation and Framing.” American Journal of Sociology 105 (4): 1063–1104. Diani, Mario. 1992. “The Concept of Social Movement.” The Sociological Review 40 (1): 1–25. Diez, Jordi. 2015. The Politics of Gay Marriage in Latin America: Argentina, Chile and Mexico. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Disney, Jennifer and Joyce Gelb. 2000. “Feminist Organizational Success:The State of US Women’s Movement organizations in the 1990s.” Women and Politics 21 (4): 39–57. Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper Collins Publishers. Ellickson, Mark and Donald Whistler. 2000. “A Path Analysis of Legislative Success in Professional and Citizen Legislatures:A Gender Comparison.” Women and Politics 21 (4): 77–100. Erikson, Robert, Michael Mackien and James Stimson. 2002. The Macro Polity. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Ewig, Christina and Myra Ferree. 2013. “Feminist Organizing: What’s Old, What’s New? History,Trends, and Issues.” In Georgina Waylen et al., eds. The Oxford Handbook of Gender Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ferree, Myra Marx and Patricia Yancey Martin. 1995. Feminist Organizations: Harvest of the New Women’s Movements. Philadelphia, PA:Temple University Press. Finnemore, Martha and Kathryn Sikkink. 1998. “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change.” International Organization 52 (4): 887–917. Franceschet, Susan. 2003.“State Feminism and Women’s Movements:The Impact of Chile’s Servicio Nacional de la Mujer Con Women’s Activism.” Latin American Research Review 38 (1): 9–40. Franceschet, Susan, Mona Lena Krook and Jennifer Piscopo, eds. 2012. The Impact of Gender Quotas. New York: Oxford University Press. Friedman, Elizabeth. 2009. “Gender, Sexuality and the Latin American Left: Testing the Transformation.” Third World Quarterly 30 (2): 415–433. Friedman, Elizabeth. 2019. Seeking Rights from the Left: Gender, Sexuality and the Latin American Pink Tide. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Funk, Kendall, Madga Hinojosa and Jennifer Piscopo. 2017. “Still Left Behind: Gender, Political Parties and Latin America’s Pink Tide.” Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society 24 (4): 399–424.

28 Introduction

Gamson, William. 1975. The Strategy of Social Protest. Homewood, IL: Dorsey. George, Alexander and Andrew Bennett. 2005. Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences. Cambridge, MA:The MIT Press. Gilens, Martin and Benjamin Page. 2014. “Testing Theories of American politics: Elites, Interest Groups and Average Citizens.” Perspectives on Politics 12 (3): 564–581. Giugni, Marco. 1998. “Was it Worth the Effort? The Outcomes and Consequences of Social Movements.” Annual Review of Sociology 98: 371–393. Giugni, Marco. 2004. Social Protest and Policy Change. Ecology, Antinuclear and Peace Movements in Comparative Perspective. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Giugni, Marco and Doug McAdam and Charles Tilly, eds. 1999. How Social Movements Matter? Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Haas, Liesl. 2010.Feminist Policymaking in Chile. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press. Hagopian, Frances. 2009. Religious Pluralism, Democracy and the Catholic Church in Latin America. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Heclo, Hugh. 1978.“Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment.” In Anthony King, ed. The New American Political System.Washington, DC:American Enterprise Institute. Htun, Mala. 2003. Sex and the State: Abortion, Divorce and the Family under Latin American Dictatorships and Democracies. New York: Cambridge University Press. Htun, Mala and Mark Jones. 2002. “Engendering the Right to Participate in Decision Making: Electoral Quotas and Women’s Leadership in Latin America.” In Nikki Craske and Maxine Molyneux, eds. Gender and Politics of Rights and Democracy in Latin America. New York: Palgrave. Htun, Mala and Timothy Power. 2006. “Gender, Parties and Support for Equal Rights in the Brazilian Congress.” Latin American Politics and Society 48 (4): 83–104. Htun, Mala and Laurel Weldon. 2012. “The Civic Origins of Progressive Policy Change: Combating Violence against Women in Global Perspective, 1975–2005.” American Political Science Review 106 (3): 548–569. Htun, Mala and Laurel Weldon. 2013. “Feminist Mobilization and Progressive Policy Change: Why Governments Take Action to Combat Violence Against Women?” Gender and Development 21 (2): 231–248. Htun, Mala and Laurel Weldon. 2018. The Logics of Gender Justice: State Action on Women’s Rights Around the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jaquette, Jane. 2009. Feminist Agendas and Democracy in Latin America. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Johnson, Erik and John D. McCarthy. 2005. “The Organizational Mobilization of the Global and US Environmental Movements.” In Donatella Della Porta and Sidney Tarrow, eds. Transnational Processes and Social Movements. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. Johnson, Niki. 2011.“El tratamiento de la despenalización del aborto en el ámbito político parlamentario.” In Niki Johnson,Alejandra López Gómez, Graciela Sapriza,Alicia Castro and Guadalberto Arribeltz, eds. Despenalización del aborto en Uruguay: prácticas, actores y discursos. Montevideo: Universidad de la República. Johnson, Niki and Michelle Taylor. 2014. “Representación de las mujeres en los cuerpos legislativos de América Latina.” Revista Uruguaya de Ciencia Política 23 (2): 7–14. Jones, Mark, Santiago Alles and Carolina Tchintian. 2012.“Cuotas de género, leyes electorales y elección de legisladores en América Latina.” Revista de Ciencia Política 32 (2): 331–357. Kampwirth, Karen and Victoria Gonzalez, eds. 2001. Radical Women in Latin America. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Introduction

29

Kane, Melinda. 2003. “Social Movement Policy Success: Decriminalizing State Sodomy Laws, 1969–1998.” Mobilization 8 (3): 313–334. Keck, Margaret and Kathryn Sikkink. 1998. Activists Beyond Borders. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Kitschelt, Herbert. 1986. “Political Opportunity Structure and Political Protest: AntiNuclear Movements in Four Democracies.” British Journal of Political Science 16 (1): 57–85. Kriesi, Hanspeter, Ruud Koopmans, Jan Duyvendak and Marco Giugni. 1995. New Social Movements in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Kolb, Felix. 2007. Protest and Opportunities:The Political Outcomes of Social Movements. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag. Lovenduski, Joni and Pippa Norris. 1993. Gender and Party Politics. London: Sage. Luna, Juan Pablo. 2006. “Programmatic and Non-Programmatic Party Voter Linkages in Two Institutionalized Party Systems: Chile and Uruguay in Comparative Perspective.” Dissertation, UNC, Chapel Hill. Lycklama a Nijehold, Geertje,Virginia Vargas and Saskia Wieringa. 1998. Women’s Movements and Public Policy in Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. New York: Garland Publishing Inc. Mainwaring, Scott. 2018. Party Systems in Latin America: Institutionalization, Decay and Collapse. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Mainwaring, Scott and Timothy Scully, eds. 1995. Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin America. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Mainwaring, Scott and Matthew Soberg Shugart, eds. 1997. Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Matland, Richard E. and Donley T. Studlar. 1996.“The Contagion of Women Candidates in Single-Member District and Proportional Representation Electoral Systems: Canada and Norway.” The Journal of Politics 58 (3): 707–733. Mazur, Amy, Dorothy McBride and Season Hoard. 2016. “Comparative Strength of Women’s Movements over Time: Conceptual, Empirical and Theoretical Innovations.” Politics, Groups and Identities 4 (4): 652–676. McAdam, Doug. 1982. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930–1970. Chicago, IL:The University of Chicago Press. McAdam, Doug. 1996. “Conceptual Origins, Current Problems, Future Directions.” In Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy and Meyer N. Zald, eds. Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. McAdam, Doug and Yang Su. 2002.“The War at Home:Antiwar Protests and Congressional Voting, 1965 to 1973.” American Sociological Review 67 (5): 696–721. McCarthy, John and Mayer Zald. 1977.“Resource Mobilization and Social Movements:A Partial Theory.” American Journal of Sociology 82 (6): 1211–1241. Meier, Kenneth J. 1999.“Drugs, Sex, Rock and Roll:A Theory of Morality Politics.” Policy Studies Journal 27 (4): 681–695. Meyer, David. 2004. “Protest and Political Opportunities.” Annual Review of Sociology 30: 125–145. Miranda Novoa, Martha. 2012.“Diferencia entre la perspectiva de género y la ideología de genero.” Dikaion Revista de Fundamentación Jurídica 21 (2): 337–356. Mooney, Christopher Z. 1999.“The Politics of Morality Policy: Symposium Editor’s Introduction.” Policy Studies Journal 27 (4): 675–680. Morgan, Lynn. 2015.“Reproductive Rights or Reproductive Justice? Lessons from Argentina.” Health and Human Rights 17 (1): 136–147.

30 Introduction

Morgenstern, Scott and Benito Nacif. 2002. Legislative Politics in Latin America. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Mourao Permoser, Julia. 2019. “What are Morality Policies? The Politics of Values in a Post-Secular World.” Political Studies Review 17 (3): 310–325. O’Donnell, Guillermo. 1983. Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism: Studies in South American Politics. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press Olzak, Susan, Sarah Soule, Marion Coddou and John Munoz. 2016. “Friends or Foes? How Social Movement Allies Affect the Passage of Legislation in the US Congress?” Mobilization 21 (2): 213–230. Page, Benjamin. 2002.“The Semi-Sovereign Public.” In Jeff Manza, Fay Lomax Cook and Benjamin Page, eds. Navigating Public Opinion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Page, Benjamin and Robert Y. Shapiro. 1983. “Effects of Public Opinion on Policy.” American Political Science Review 77: 175–190. Paxton, Pamela, Melanie Hughes and Jennifer Green. 2006. “The International Women’s Movement and Women’s Political Representation, 1893–2003.” American Sociological Review 71 (6): 898–920. Pettinicchio, David. 2012. “Institutional Activism: Reconsidering the Insider/Outsider Dichotomy.” Sociology Compass 6 (6): 499–510. Pierson, Paul. 1994. Dismantling the Welfare State? Reagan,Thatcher and the Politics of Retrenchment. New York: Cambridge University Press. Piven, Frances and R. Cloward. 1979. Poor People’s Movements:Why they Succeed. How they Fail. New York:Vintage. Pollit, Katha. 2015.“Who Has Abortions?” The Nation. www.thenation.com/article/who-hasabortions/. Pribble, Jennifer. 2013. Welfare and Party Politics in Latin America. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Reutersward, Camila, Par Zetterberg, Suruchi Thapar and Maxine Molyneux. 2011. “Abortion Law Reforms in Colombia and Nicaragua: Issue Networks and Opportunity Contexts.” Development and Change 42 (3): 805–831. Rozell, Mark. 2000.“Helping Women Run and Win: Feminist Groups, Candidate Recruitment and Training.” Women and Politics 21 (3): 101–117. Rucht, Dieter. 1999. “The Impact of Environmental Movements in Western Societies.” In Marco Giugni, Doug McAdam and Charles Tilly, eds. How Social Movements Matter. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Samuels, David. 2003. Ambition, Federalism and Legislative Politics in Brazil. New York: Cambridge University Press. Schattschneider, Elmer E. 1960. The Semi-Sovereign People. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Shepard, Bonnie. 2006. Running the Obstacle Course to Sexual and Reproductive Health: Lessons from Latin America. Westport, CT: Praeger. Shugart, Matthew Soberg and Stephan Haggard. 2001. “Institutions and Public Policy in Presidential Systems.” In Stephan Haggard and Mathew D. McCubbins, eds. Presidents, Parliaments and Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Siavelis, Peter. 2000. The President and Congress in Post-Authoritarian Chile. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press. Skocpol,Theda. 1992. Protecting Soldiers and Mothers:The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States. Cambridge, MA:The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Smith, S.E. 2019.“Women Are Not the Only Ones Who Get Abortions.” Rewire News. https:// rewire.news/article/2019/03/01/women-are-not-the-only-ones-who-get-abortions/.

Introduction

31

Snow, David, Burke Rochford, Steven Worden and Robert Benford. 1989. “Frame Alignment Processes, Micro-Mobilization and Movement Participation.” American Sociological Review 51 (4): 464–481. Soule, Sarah and Susan Olzak. 2004. “When Do Movements Matter? The Politics of Contingency and the Equal Rights Amendment.” American Sociological Review 69 (4): 473–497. Stetson, Dorothy McBride and Amy G. Mazur, eds. 1995. Comparative State Feminism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Sutton, Barbara and Elizabeth Borland. 2018. “Queering Abortion Rights: Notes from Argentina.” Culture, Health and Sexuality 20 (12): 1378–1393. Tarrow, Sidney. 1993. “Social Protest and Policy Reform: May 1968 and the Loi D’Orientation in France” Comparative Political Studies 25 (4): 579. Tarrow, Sidney. 1998. Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tilly, Charles. 1978. From Mobilization to Revolution. New York: McGraw Hill. Tilly, Charles and Georgina Waylen. 2000.“Gender and Democratic Politics: A Comparative Analysis of Consolidation in Argentina and Chile.” Journal of Latin American Studies 32 (3): 765–793. Waylen, Georgina. 2000. “Gender and Democratic Politics: A Comparative Analysis of Consolidation in Argentina and Chile.” Journal of Latin American Studies 32 (3): 765–793. Waylen, Georgina, Karen Celis, Johanna Kantola and Laurel Weldon. 2013. The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Weldon, Laurel. 2002. Protest, Policy and the Problem of Violence Against Women: A Cross National Comparison. Pittsburg, PA: University of Pittsburg Press. Weldon, Laurel. 2004. “The Dimensions and Policy Impact of Feminist Civil Society: Democratic Policymaking on Violence Against Women in the Fifty U.S. States.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 6 (1): 1–28. Yam, Eileen, Ingrid Dries Daffner and Sandra Garcia. 2006.“Abortion Opinion Research in Latin American and the Caribbean: A Review of the Literature.” Studies in Family Planning 37 (4): 225–240.

1 ABORTION IN LATIN AMERICA

In 1999, a 14-year-old girl was denied an abortion after being raped and becoming pregnant in Mexico – despite abortion being legal under these circumstances in the state of Baja California.The director of the General Hospital in Mexicali told her (and her mother) that having an abortion could put her life at risk. As if that weren’t enough, the general prosecutor took her to talk to a local priest, who reminded her that abortion spelled an immediate excommunication from the Church. Anti-choice activists visited her in the hospital and forced her to watch the documentary “Silent Scream.”The girl decided not to have an abortion and in 2000 gave birth to a baby boy.The case reached the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which in 2006 forced Mexico to pay reparations to the girl and to commit to change the legislation on abortion to prevent this from happening again (Winocour 2006). In June 2007, a 35-year-old woman and mother of four, working as a maid for one dollar an hour, died of uterine cancer in Colombia.Two years earlier she had been denied treatment because of being pregnant with her fourth daughter. The total abortion ban in place at the time in the country prevented her from saving her life. Her case was influential in the 2006 Supreme Court of Colombia ruling that lifted the total ban and legalized abortion when the life of the woman is in danger, the fetus has no chances of living outside the womb or when the pregnancy results from rape and/or incest. However, the court ruling came too late for her (Gould 2008). In 2013, a 22-year-old woman and mother of a toddler suffering from lupus and kidney failure and carrying an anencephalic fetus with no chances of surviving was denied an abortion in El Salvador due to the total ban in place in the country since 1998. Due to national and international outcry the case reached the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which forced the Salvadoran

Abortion in Latin America

33

government to interrupt the pregnancy. On October 9, 2013, doctors performed a cesarean section at 26 weeks.The baby lived only five hours. Abortion laws have historically been highly restrictive in Latin America,1 making the practice of abortion one of the main causes of maternal death in these countries. While these regulations have long been eliminated in the Northern countries, women in Latin America are still seeing their autonomy limited by them. Why has it taken so long to address this situation in the region? This chapter provides a context for the ensuing political analysis of abortion in Latin America.The first section describes the status of abortion laws in the region and evaluates their rationale and consequences. It also explains the reasons why it has been so hard to reform these laws and grant Latin American women the right to an abortion.The second section explores the status of abortion and the history of abortion laws in the three countries – Uruguay, Chile and Argentina – offering a general introduction to the empirical chapters and the comparative analysis developed in the book.

Legal Status of Abortion in Latin America: Origins and Consequences The laws regulating abortion in Latin America are a legacy of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires. Inspired by canon law – the system of laws made and enforced by the Catholic Church – Spain formalized the prohibition of abortion as early as 1263 and Portugal during the 1600s. In line with laws in continental Europe, abortion was punishable by death in the Spanish and Portuguese Empires in the Americas. After independence, at the end of the nineteenth century, most Latin American countries drafted civil and criminal codes. As it happened in all the realms of state-building, indigenous practices and regulations around abortion did not inform the drafting of the codes at all. Instead jurists used continental European law, particularly the Napoleonic Code, as legal inspiration. Abortions were thus criminalized and punished under all circumstances. Exceptions to this total ban only began to appear in the twentieth century. Today, Latin America is still noted for the restrictiveness of its abortion laws. The only places in the region that permit abortion on request are Cuba (since 1965), Mexico City (since 2007)2, Uruguay (since 2012) and the Mexican state of Oaxaca (since 2019). Four countries restrict abortion under all circumstances, even if the life of the woman is at risk: Honduras (since 1997), El Salvador (since 1998), Nicaragua (since 2006) and the Dominican Republic (since 2009). Chile was in this category from 1989 until the 2017 reform that introduced some exceptions to the general ban. In between these two extremes are most of the rest of the countries, which, like Argentina, allow abortion only under exceptional circumstances. Some of the most common situations include: threat to the woman’s life and/or health, rape, incest and fetal malformations incompatible with life outside the womb.

34 Abortion in Latin America

However, even in the few circumstances in which abortion is legal, women often have difficulty accessing the practice, given the presence of multiple gatekeepers in the health and judicial systems.Whether due to their own anti-abortion stances, their lack of knowledge of state regulations or their fear of being penalized, doctors many times refuse to provide an abortion and ask permission from judges and government authorities before providing one – even when the case clearly falls within the parameters of the law (López Gómez 2015). Judges many times disregard the letter of the law and deny authorizations, and government officials such as ministers of the family interfere in these judicial instances in defense of the “unborn child,” delaying the provision of an abortion even more. As a consequence, even in the cases where legal exceptions exist, abortions are hard to access and the laws are ignored. In the last decades, countries have been taken to international courts and held accountable for these violations. In the cases noted at the beginning of this chapter, for example, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ruled against Mexico and El Salvador for denying the right to abortion in cases of rape and an anencephalic fetus.3 The Commission is currently hearing the case of a 16-year-old girl from the Dominican Republic diagnosed with leukemia who died in 2012 after being denied treatment for being pregnant. Despite the legal restrictions present in Latin America, the Guttmacher Institute estimates that 6.5 million abortions occur annually in the region,4 a trend that has risen from 4.4 million during 1990–1994.They estimated the percentage of pregnancies that ended in abortion to have increased from 23 to 32% during that same five-year period. But many of these were unsafe procedures and as a consequence, in 2014, 900 women died from illegal abortions (10% of all maternal deaths) and 760,000 had to be treated for complications.As is always the case, poor and rural women were the most likely to suffer these consequences (Guttmacher Institute 2018). In the 1990s, women in Brazil found that the drug Misoprostol, originally prescribed for gastric ulcers, was an effective abortifacient. Its growing use has gradually diminished the risk to the health and life of women having illegal abortions (Guttmacher Institute 2018).Abortions with Misoprostol, while still illegal under these countries’ laws, have become medically safe if the accurate guidelines are followed. Some government and civil society groups throughout the region have begun to recommend the use of Misoprostol to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity for abortion in legally restrictive contexts. Governments have launched harm reduction strategies in the form of pre- and post-abortion counseling (Hyman et. al 2013; Ramos et al. 2014).The program Iniciativas Sanitarias in Uruguay, implemented before the 2012 legalization of abortion, was one of the first and the most successful of these initiatives (Briozzo 2002). In addition, networks of feminist activists began to provide information about the use of Misoprostol through abortion hotlines and abortion doula services (Drovetta 2015; McReynolds 2017; Grosso and Zurbriggen 2016; Zurbriggen et al. 2018).The Argentine group

Abortion in Latin America

35

Socorristas has helped 23,315 women interrupt their unwanted pregnancies with medication throughout a five-year period (Socorristas 2019). In situations in which information about Misoprostol is increasingly available, the main problem has been accessing the medication to practice a self-induced abortion.Whether prohibited as an abortifacient, sold at unaffordable prices or having had its purchase restricted by additional requirements, the drug has remained available through a black market, though it is not always clear whether the drug purchased is real or of dubious quality (Hyman et al. 2013;Tavara Orozco et al. 2009). Abortion laws usually punish both the provider and women with penalties that range from three months to ten years. In general, however, these restrictive laws are rarely enforced.The rates of those prosecuted for abortion are very low; even fewer are actually convicted.A 2013 report by IPAS found that in Argentina, where it is estimated women have approximately 450,000 abortions annually, there were only 417 cases of women and doctors arrested for the “crime of abortion” between 1990 and 2008 (Kane et al. 2013). However, when these convictions happen, they disproportionally affect poor women who have received emergency care in public hospitals, since it is usually public hospital personnel who report them to the police (Oberman 2018; Kane et al. 2013). One country, El Salvador, is an outlier. Since the country’s total ban law passed in 1998, courts have been using the criminal offense of homicide for cases of abortion, convicting women to sentences of up to 40 years (Oberman 2018). While only few people who have abortions are convicted, all of them suffer other consequences of the criminalization: When deciding to end an unwanted pregnancy they put their lives in the hands of clandestine practices they know nothing about. If unexpected health problems arise, it is impossible to hold those responsible accountable. More specifically, when excessive pain or bleeding occur, women have no choice but to rush to emergency rooms where many times they are humiliated and mistreated.There have been reports of doctors finishing incomplete abortions without anesthesia and leaving women last in line to be treated as a form of punishment for interrupting their pregnancies (Checa 2006; Steele and Chiarotti 2004).And those are the lucky ones who even get help. Many others, afraid of being reported to the police or being shamed by their families, refuse to seek medical attention, and die. In light of this reality, reproductive rights experts have insisted that the criminalization of abortion is a direct attack on women’s reproductive rights, as well as their basic right to life, personal integrity, access to reproductive health, intimacy, dignity, personal freedom and the right to live free of violence and discrimination (ADC-GIRE 2012; Chiarotti 2006). This has also been stated numerous times by international institutions such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights,5 the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).6

36 Abortion in Latin America

The Resilience of Abortion Restrictions Scholars tend to classify the abortion debate under the politics of morality: A field defined by policies that deal with life-and-death decisions, sexuality and self-determination (Mooney 1999; Meier 1999; Mourao Permoser 2019). Morality issues are perceived and usually framed as a zero-sum game in which the values of a specified group get legitimated at the expense of others, deeming the values unamenable to compromise (Mucciaroni 2011).These morality policies most of the time deal with values and behaviors that clash with religious doctrine and as such are considered a sin by believers (Mourao Permoser 2019). However, this particular dynamic has been more persistent in some regions and countries – i.e., Latin America – than in others.Why have Latin American regulations on abortion remained so restrictive while other regions of the world have been able to arrive at new consensus around the legalization of the practice? The role of the Catholic Church (and more recently Evangelical churches in certain countries) is typically cited as the main culprit, given its deep-seated and wide-ranging role influencing both societal values and political elites. However, this obstacle has been overcome, with respect to other issues that also transgress key religious doctrine. Issues such as divorce, the legalization of the morning-after pill, sex education programs and same-sex marriage reforms were codified into law in many countries in the region, particularly in the cases studied here. Is there something fundamentally different about the question of abortion? Why has it been so much more difficult for abortion advocates to obtain similar successful results? Why are the conservative forces behind the politics of morality stronger in this particular case? This section will discuss the role of the Catholic and Evangelical churches in the issue of abortion and explores the literature of gender policy to determine how abortion differs or not from other issues in this field. A comparison with reforms to family law and same-sex marriage suggests some reasons why abortion restrictions have been more resistant to change in Latin America. This second section discusses the resilience of abortion restrictions through the perception of political costs around this practice and how they are affected by the timing of the emergence of the women’s movement, the class and gender divide and the presence of stigma – as well as the fight for appropriating the human rights frame by each of the sides of the debate.

The Catholic Church, Gender and Abortion The conquest of the new world by the Spanish and Portuguese crowns has been characterized as a “religious endeavor” given the role that conversion to Christianity played as a major component of the enterprise (Garrard-Burnett et al. 2016). During the colonization phase, the Catholic Church was intimately integrated in the political institutions that ruled the new territories.The relationship between

Abortion in Latin America

37

the Spanish and Portuguese crowns and the Church was regulated through the institution of the Royal Patronage, called Padroado in Portugal. Given the lack of a large active presence of the Church in the colonial territories, the crown collected tithe for them and was in charge of making appointments to religious offices. In exchange, the Church received large extensions of land and the crowns financed the construction of cathedrals and seminaries. As a result, the Church became the most influential political, economic and cultural actor in the colonies. By the eighteenth century it had become the largest landowner and primary financial institution from which the local population borrowed money. The Church, mostly through the order of the Jesuits, was also in charge of the various Latin American educational systems, affording them a significant channel through which to spread their doctrine and values (Stark and Smith 2012).The Church’s cultural hegemony implied that most people felt a sense of belonging to the Church they did not necessarily have towards the crown or later the nation-state (Garrard-Burnett et al. 2016). The Catholic Church has influenced Latin American culture, its institutions and laws. Its social doctrine provided a justification for the heteropatriarchal organization of society.The Church embraces an essentialist view of men and women. God created mankind, male and female. For most of its history the Church held that women should subordinate themselves to male authority in the family. It was only at the 1962–1965 Second Vatican Council that the Church changed its traditional position and stated that women and men are equal – although, to be sure, this modification notwithstanding, the Church continues to adhere to the notion that the sexes are complementary because of their different missions and roles. Equality, in Catholic doctrine, is rooted in women’s proper nature and essence, which is to serve as the heart of the family.The “feminine genius,” in the words of Pope John Paul II, is what is needed to aid humanity:Women’s innate receptivity, sensitivity, generosity and maternity (Savage 2009). Only when a woman works within this nature is she fulfilled. The Church has relied on the image of Mary to provide women with a role model: A woman who submitted to god, with an infinite capacity for self-sacrifice and generosity. With Mary as the example to follow, in Mulieris Dignitatem, the Church defines virginity and motherhood as two dimensions of the fulfillment of the female personality (John Paul II 1988). In light of the Catholic separation between male and female roles, nineteenth-century civil codes in Latin America gave men and women different rights and duties. Men had marital power, meaning the man commanded the person and property of the wife and children. Married women could not manage their property, pursue employment, open a bank account or make decisions about their children without husband’s authorization. Civil law also reflected canon law in terms of marriage, thus ruling out the possibility of divorce. It was only in the twentieth century that civil codes began to distance themselves from Catholic doctrine, embracing ideas from other traditions such as liberalism and socialism that offered women equal rights within marriage (Htun 2003). These changes

38 Abortion in Latin America

occurred gradually through the century and depended on the particular domestic political dynamics of each of the countries. As an example, Uruguay legalized divorce in 1913,Argentina in 1987 and Chile in 2004. The Catholic Church’s present position on abortion is that the practice is a horrendous crime and a “serious moral disorder … that contributes to spreading a mentality against life” (Catholic Church Social Doctrine 233). The Church defends the right to life from conception to its natural end, conferring illicitness on every form of abortion. This position, however, does not have as long a historical tradition as the Vatican pretends; the Church portrays it as such to justify its position’s immutability.While the Church has always condemned abortion, and by the fourth century there were already formal rules against it, prior to 1869 life was not understood to begin at conception. Before this date, when the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary was made into dogma, a fetus was thought to receive its soul from 40 to 80 days after conception, abortion being a sin only after the ensoulment had taken place. The extreme position that abortion is not allowed under any circumstance is even more recent. Until 1930 many thinkers within the Church supported therapeutic abortion, meaning the interruption of a pregnancy to save the woman’s life. It was only in this year that the Church’s encyclical Casti Connubbi condemned therapeutic abortion, stating there is never a “sufficient reason for excusing in any way the murder of the innocent” (Pius XI 1930: 64). At the beginning of the twentieth century, when many Latin American countries passed legislation allowing abortion under certain circumstances, the Church did not necessarily oppose these reforms. Such abortion reforms were passed by a nucleus of male politicians, doctors and jurists who legalized abortion only under very limited circumstances requiring authorization from a doctor or judge. In addition, these reforms represented no real threat to the dominant discourse of abortion being morally wrong. The truth of the matter is that the Church only began actively organizing against abortion after feminist movements came together to claim autonomy of women’s bodies, threatening the consensus condemning abortion and the role assigned to women under patriarchy (Htun 2003). The religious mobilization, in short, has happened mostly as a reaction to the advancement of reproductive rights. Since then, the Catholic Church has used all its resources to oppose the further advancement of the legalization of abortion.The lack of a strong separation of Church and state in many of the Latin American countries constitutes a clear channel of influence for the Church to impose such beliefs. The presence of Catholic social doctrine in criminal and civil codes ensures the protection of Catholic values. The creation of political parties committed to Catholic social doctrine is another channel that worked in some of these countries, such as the Christian Democratic Party in Chile. When no direct formal channels are available, informal means of pressure have been used. The Magisterium teaches that “a well-formed Christian conscience

Abortion in Latin America

39

does not permit one to vote for a political program or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental content of faith and morals” (Catholic Church Social Doctrine 570). In line with this principle, the Catholic Church puts pressure on government officials and legislators who self-identify as Catholics. The Church has publicly threatened with excommunication all politicians who vote in favor of the legalization of abortion.7 In the majority of Catholic countries this threat is not insignificant: 83.7% of parliamentarians identify themselves as Catholics in Latin America (Alcántara and Rivas 2018).8 In addition, in many countries, it is the position on the issue of abortion that has become the deciding factor for whether the Catholic Church supports or opposes a candidate or a political party (Moran Faundes 2015). Aside from the direct pressure on the political system, the Church exerts a strong source of power through its continuous presence in these societies since the times of the conquest and colonization. After independence the Church retained the control of the educational system. It was not until the end of the nineteenth century that liberal elites created public secular schools to remove the Church’s influence from the education of citizens. However, even then, since the new states could not build and staff enough schools to educate all the population, governments gave the Church subsidies to continue their educational mission. In most of the countries, these have continued until today. As late as the 1960s at least 90% of the population self-identified as Catholic. By 2014 this percentage had fallen to 69% (Pew Research Center 2014). Despite the fact that identification with Catholicism is decreasing, it is still by far the dominant religion in most of the countries.

Rising Evangelicals Despite the fact that the Catholic Church continues to be the main religious institution in the region, Protestant churches have begun to challenge Catholic dominance. In 1970, Protestant denominations comprised only 4% of the population in the region. By 2014 they had reached 19%. However, this number hides vast differences across the region.While Protestants make up between 35 and 40% of the population in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua, they represent less than 10% in Mexico and Paraguay (Pew Research Center 2014). During colonial times, in order to preserve the Church’s rule, no Protestant churches or missionaries were allowed in Latin America. Given the hegemony of Catholicism in the region, British and American Protestants for the most part prioritized other regions of the world, even after independence. However, throughout the twentieth century Evangelical denominations9 came to believe the Catholic Church no longer connected with the majority of the population and began organizing missions to the region.This implied that Latin America was targeted almost exclusively by conservative Protestantism (Stark and Smith 2012). Evangelicals have been able to grow and thrive particularly in

40 Abortion in Latin America

low-income and rural areas where the state does not reach, and such Protestant denominations are the only ones present to offer education and social services to these populations. Despite their increasing growth, Evangelicals have yet to achieve the economic and political power that conquest and colonization granted the Catholic Church. To address this, Evangelicals actively encourage members of their faith to participate in politics and run for office, and thus in the last 20 years their political power has grown significantly. Brazil, for example, has an Evangelical caucus in Congress that, as of 2019, claims the affiliation of 199 of the 513 legislators in the Lower Chamber. Guatemala’s president Jimmy Morales is an Evangelical theologian and in Costa Rica, Fabricio Alvarado, the runner-up for the presidency in 2018, was an Evangelical preacher. The result is that evangelicalism has become a realized, institutionalized and significant force in Latin America. The other consequence is that Evangelical politicians have become a significant obstacle to advancing sexual and reproductive rights in the region. In the past, relationships between the Catholic and Evangelical churches were quite tense given that they were actively competing to recruit members. More recently, faced by a common “enemy” of, in their words, “gender ideology,” they have joined forces. “Gender ideology” is a right-wing catch-all term for sexual and reproductive rights. In their fight against “gender ideology” churches oppose the definition of gender as a social construct that is fluid, non-essential and nonbinary. Do these alliances between religions matter? In 2006 in Nicaragua, it was this alliance between both churches that made the total ban on abortion possible (Kampwirth 2008; Heumann and Duyvendak 2015).

Abortion: A Different Issue? Why has abortion generated a stronger opposition than other equally controversial issues such as divorce or same-sex marriage? Why has abortion been able to so tenaciously resist reform in many countries throughout Latin America? Is abortion an issue with its own dynamics that cannot be compared to other gender policy issues, let alone other general policy issues? Some scholars argue that gender issues have different dynamics in terms of the process of policy change (Htun 2003; Htun and Weldon 2013 and 2018). In her earlier work, Htun divided gender issues into absolutist and technical. The former are usually discussed in symbolic terms and provoke gut responses and value clashes, abortion being the paramount case.The latter, such as gender equality, are discussed by experts, provoke little public controversy and, as a result, are less likely to put religion on the defensive (Htun 2003). In their recent work on gender justice, Htun and Weldon added a new dimension to these two initial categories:Whether the policy advances women’s rights as a status group or as a class group, violence against women being an example of the former, and parental leave of the latter (2018). Abortion in their classification is an issue that challenges the doctrine of the major

Abortion in Latin America

41

religious and cultural groups, and one that advances the rights of women as a status group, which for them explains the lack of reform. The characterizations offered by these scholars are helpful to differentiate between the wide variety of issues within gender policies, but what of the issues within the same category? Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador grant same-sex couples the right to marry while preventing women from having an abortion on request at any time in the pregnancy, for example.10 Abortion is usually perceived by Latin American politicians as risky and politically costly (Pecheny 2011).As a consequence, Legislative and Executive support has been muted at best and there has been a general stasis and lack of policy change in most of these countries.This perception was present in the 1990s when Mala Htun did her research in the Southern Cone countries and an Argentine legislator explained the following maxim to her:“No one has demonstrated interest in considering this bill (for abortion reform). It is an impolitic issue for the political environment of our country. To speak publicly in favor of abortion is impolitic” (Htun 2003: 152). In 2012, in the research conducted for this book, another Argentine legislator stated much the same:“What reform do you want to pass? Because here in Congress everything passes except abortion. As long as it is not abortion we approve anything.”11 While there are those politicians who believe firmly in the sanctity of life from the moment of conception, those moved by strong convictions are relatively few. The same is true of those committed to abortion legalization.The large majority of those in power favor the legal status quo, whatever that is in each of the countries, and prefer to stay away from an issue that is divisive, antagonizes the religious actors and is not a priority for their political projects or large constituents.When bills were introduced to advance abortion rights during electoral years, politicians usually pushed to postpone congressional discussions after the elections to prevent the issue from entering the electoral agenda and having to take a stance that might be politically costly.This was repeatedly the case, for example, in the congressional discussions for abortion reform in Uruguay each time a bill was introduced. This perception of abortion being pianta votos is of course motivated by the fear of antagonizing the Catholic Church and the loss of votes for their political projects and electoral careers. However, there are other factors behind the association of abortion with political loss that differentiate it from the issues of divorce and same-sex marriage. Despite strong religious opposition, these other issues managed to be confronted, discussed and voted on in many countries throughout Latin America. This has not been the case of abortion. Two of the factors that made the criminalization of abortion more resilient refer to the lack of a strong movement for abortion reform and the difficulties in creating a wide cross-class and -gender coalition around abortion. The other two factors refer to the issue of abortion itself: The presence of a strong stigma around this practice and the dispute over the discourse of human rights that exists between both sides of the abortion debate.

42 Abortion in Latin America

Timing Matters Women’s movements have played a key role in the struggle for the legalization of abortion (Htun 2003; Blofield 2006; Reutersward et al. 2011).When comparing abortion to other equally controversial issues for the religious actors, it is important to consider the time in which movements for abortion reform emerged in Latin America. Movements demanding same-sex marriage in Latin America, for example, were contemporaneous with those in the Northern countries and as such were able to take advantage of the favorable international context.This was not the case with abortion. While feminist movements swept Europe and North America in the late 1960s and 1970s, challenging restrictions on abortion, Latin American activists and social movements were mainly occupied with the fight against dictatorships and civil wars. It is not that women did not organize and mobilize, but rather they did so to oppose the brutal regimes in power and to address the needs of poor populations hit by the recurrent economic crises. In that particular political context, reproductive rights would have to wait. When democracy returned to the region in the 1980s and 1990s, first in South America and later in Central America, feminist movements in the region gradually began to actively push for reproductive rights. In 1990, Latin American activists launched the September 28th Day of Action for Access to Safe and Legal Abortion at the Fifth Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Meeting held in San Bernardo, Argentina. Since then, most countries in the region have seen mobilizations and protests around this date. However, by the time the women’s movement began to focus on reproductive rights, the global context had changed. In the face of the legalization of abortion in many of the Northern industrialized, particularly European Catholic, countries the Vatican put abortion at the top of its moral agenda. The Catholic Church, although now clear in its opposition to abortion as the end of an innocent life, has not always prioritized this issue in its advocacy. The 1960s and 1970s in Latin America saw the emergence of a movement that prioritized social justice issues and put the rights of the poor at its center: Liberation theology.Through the creation of ecclesial base communities, this movement spread through Latin America, organized the grassroots and committed the Catholic Church in the fight against socio-economic inequality in the region.Towards the end of the 1970s, however, the relevance of social justice issues in the Church’s preaching and activities was about to end. In 1978, John Paul II became pope and moral issues such as abortion were given a priority in the Church’s mission as never before (Garrard-Burnett et al. 2016). Having lived through the Soviet conquest of his home country, Poland, and experienced the repression of Catholicism and the legalization of abortion there, the pope felt very strongly about these issues. His personal history and his opposition to communism led him to combat any association of Catholicism with

Abortion in Latin America

43

left-wing parties and movements in Latin America, which have resulted from the decades of prioritizing the poor under Liberation theology.The appointment of conservative bishops and the crackdown on left-wing activism on the part of members of the Church shifted the Vatican’s policy towards Latin America. In addition, once most of the European Catholic countries legalized abortion, Latin America, being the largest Catholic region in the world, became the battleground on which abortion policy would be fought and decided. The Catholic Church’s battle against abortion was reinforced by a policy shift within the United States. Here, the fight to reverse the 1973 legalization of abortion through the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling launched the conservative religious Right into a level of mobilization unheard of before. Their increasing mobilizing power was not ignored by some sectors of the Republican Party and thus their influence within this party began to grow, making abortion a key issue in all electoral competitions (Tribe 1990). Since the election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980, US reproductive rights policies have been increasingly anti-abortion each time the Republican Party took office. This affected Latin America both directly, through the ban on federal funding for international NGOs providing, advising or advocating for abortion legalizations,12 but also indirectly, through the legitimacy and strength given to anti-abortion discourses prevalent both during the Bush and Trump administrations. The delayed emergence of strong movements for the legalization of abortion and the presence of strong anti-choice actors in the international community consolidated politicians’ perceptions that it was wise not to open Pandora’s box and discuss the issue of abortion.

Cross-Class and Cross-Gender Mobilization Scholars and activists have highlighted how the criminalization of abortion affects social classes quite differently (Blofield 2006; Shepard 2006). Despite the strict laws against abortion, middle and upper classes can pay to have an illegal but medically safe abortion in a private clinic, in which their risk of dying or experiencing serious health consequences are close to none.This same protection is not always available to those in the lower classes.Although Misoprostol has partially changed this situation, democratizing access to a safe abortion, the availability of the correct information and economic resources to buy the drug are also still unequally distributed. For example, those in urban centers with better access to the internet, feminist networks or that have a doctor in the family or circle of friends are more likely to receive information about Misoprostol and the correct way of using it. Shepard analyzes how the existence of a “double discourse” about abortion has enabled the continuation of restrictive laws (2006). By “double discourse” Shepard refers to the embrace of a restrictive social norm – such as the notion that abortion is morally wrong and should be banned – while ignoring or even participating in the violation of that norm in private – having an abortion or supporting a family

44 Abortion in Latin America

member in doing so when faced with an unwanted pregnancy.The possibility of having an illegal but medically safe abortion for middle and upper classes despite its legal ban provides an escape valve from the extremely repressive norm that expands the options available to people beyond what is accepted by the law.The availability of these options contributes to the lack of strong mobilization in favor of reform and the continuation of the restrictive legal status quo (Shepard 2006). The dynamics present in the issue of abortion imply a key differentiation with other issues such as divorce or same-sex marriage. The restrictive character of a law banning these other practices affects everybody equally. Divorce and same-sex marriage can only be available to all constituencies through a legal reform. The different logic of these issues allowed the emergence of a larger cross-class mobilization that has not been equally present in the debate over the issue of abortion. Moreover, unlike abortion, divorce and same-sex marriage affect men and women equally. Given that abortion is an issue that affects mostly women in a patriarchal society, it doesn’t seem to get much traction in the sense that there just never seems to be a right time to discuss the issue of abortion (Ariza and Saldivia 2015). The continuous postponement of these debates in Latin American legislatures is evidence of the lack of priority given to the issue of abortion, which mostly affects vulnerable women.

Abortion Stigma Research on abortion stigma is relatively new, and there are only a few studies conducted in Latin American countries (Shellenberg et al. 2011; Sorhaindo et al. 2014; Lamas 2014; Cardenas et al. 2018). The stigma surrounding abortion is strong in most of the region and this contributes to the difficulties in legalizing the practice. Scholars argue that abortion stigma prevails in societies that cherish three ideals related to sex and femininity:The notion that sex is primarily for reproduction; the conflation of womanhood and motherhood; and the belief that a nurturing instinct is present in all women (Kumar et al. 2009). These ideals have been present in Catholic conceptions of sex and women and as such have permeated Latin American cultures, laws and institutions. Women are seen as the givers of life and as such as naturally inclined to be good care givers, motherhood being their main mission and contribution to society. A woman who seeks an abortion challenges these assumptions and thus becomes heavily stigmatized. The choice not to have children is still frowned upon in most of these societies, and women have to repeatedly justify their decision not to have them – if that is their choice (Anzorena and Yáñez 2013; Ávila González 2005). In other words, Latin America is a region with a mother-centered kinship system, and as such motherhood has been at the heart of state policies and even women’s activism (Ramm and Gideon 2019). Early feminists, for example, used maternalist discourses to justify their right to vote (Miller 1991; Craske 1999;

Abortion in Latin America

45

Lavin 2007; Ramm 2019). In the 1970s, human rights movements to resist military dictatorships and civil wars were organized around the politicization of the identity of mothers (Franceschet et al. 2015). Movements such as the Madres de Plaza de Mayo in Argentina and COMADRES in El Salvador transformed the meaning of motherhood and embraced the practice of socializing maternity, meaning they identify as the mothers of all the oppressed (Guzman Bouvard 2004; Stephen and Tula 1994). Despite the fact that abortion is a common experience for women throughout the world, and Latin America is no exception to this trend, societies construct stereotypes of “the woman who aborts” as a special type, assigning her negative characteristics such as being selfish, promiscuous, irresponsible, heartless and murderous (Kumar et al. 2009). Studies also reveal the internalization of abortion stigma among many women who experience guilt and shame in the aftermath of their abortions. More to the point, these feelings were prevalent both among women and doctors providing the service even in the case of Uruguay, which is the most secular country in Latin America and where abortion by request has been legal since 2012 (Cardenas et al. 2018). The heavy stigma around abortion and the way this decision challenges the ideals of womanhood have proven strong obstacles to gaining support for the legalization of the practice.The existence of the stigma has not meant women abstain from having abortions, but has been conducive to create an atmosphere of secrecy and taboo around it, contributing to the prevalence of the double discourse and thus to a lack of widespread commitment to changing the restrictive laws.Again, the issue of abortion has a different trajectory from other similar issues, in this case in terms of how it responds to stigmatization. Same-sex politics is a good example.While it is true that homosexuality is also highly stigmatized in Latin America, data from the World Values Survey show a strong difference between the stigma attached to both issues. In the 2010–2014 wave 32.5% of respondents found homosexuality never justifiable, compared to 58.6% for abortion (World Values Survey).13 Scholars have stated that the larger acceptance of the demand of same-sex marriage, compared to that of abortion, stems from the fact that this reform implied the extension of a traditional and conservative institution – that of marriage – to new subjects. In contrast, the legalization of abortion directly attacks the patriarchal order granting women the right to decide over their own bodies and challenge the maternal mandate given to them (Ariza and Saldivia 2015).The overwhelming presence of stigma around abortion has been a significant factor in politicians’ desires to avoid the issue and support the legal status quo in each of these countries.

Human Rights in Dispute The concept of universal human rights has gained traction since the passing of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In Latin America this commitment has been reinforced by the signing of the American Convention on Human

46 Abortion in Latin America

Rights in 1969. The legitimacy of the notion of human rights has meant that any group that can define their demands within this framework has increased its chances of being acknowledged by policy-makers. Human rights is a dynamic concept. Starting from the notion of individual rights it has expanded to include collective rights such as those of indigenous peoples, the disabled, sexual minorities, women and others. The discourse of human rights has grown particularly strong in the region after the return of democracy in the 1980s and 1990s, a process that consolidated the human rights movements fighting for democratization and accountability in the aftermath of the numerous crimes committed during military dictatorships and/or civil wars in the region. Within this context, both camps of the abortion debate have been fighting over the high ground with each trying to appropriate the human rights framework (Morgan 2014; Morgan and Roberts 2012). The claim that “women’s rights are human rights” emerged strongly for the first time in the 1980s and 1990s UN conferences.The existence of international laws on human rights was perceived by women activists as an opportunity to advance the protection of women’s lives.The 1994 UN conference on population in Cairo and the 1995 UN conference on women in Beijing recognized women’s reproductive autonomy as a human right (Sutton and Borland 2019). Women’s organizations throughout the region took advantage of this new framework, organized local chapters to hold their governments accountable to the declarations of Cairo and Beijing and began using the language of human rights as a powerful new frame. On the other side of the debate, anti-choice groups in the region have increasingly abandoned religious arguments to oppose abortion and began using the secular discourse of bioethics and human rights in what scholars refer to as “strategic secularism” (Vaggione 2005).Anti-choice activists have made increasing use of judicial strategies to protect their traditional values, interpreting international human rights treaties in a way that defends their positions (Campana 2015). In addition, anthropologist Lynn Morgan has shown there is a group of anti-choice scholars invested in the creation of a new narrative around a “unique Latin American human rights tradition” based on Catholic doctrine (Morgan 2014). These efforts have the clear goal of promoting the idea that the “protection of life” from the moment of conception is “autochthonous” to the region while the legalization of abortion is a foreign demand imposed on their people. The battle around the appropriation of the frame of human rights in the issue of abortion has expressed itself around different interpretations of the American Convention on Human Rights. Article 4.1 protects life “in general from the moment of conception.”Those against legal abortion claim the treaty is clear in stating the protection of life from conception and thus its opposition to abortion. Those in favor of legal abortion state that the words “in general” allow for the legality of certain exceptions such as the case of abortion. In two rulings (Baby Boy14 and Artavia Murillo15) the Inter-American Commission and Court explained

Abortion in Latin America

47

that the expression “in general” was placed in the Convention so that states that allow abortions under certain circumstances might be able to ratify the convention.The Court stated that protection of the right to life is not absolute but rather gradual and incremental and that the fetus is not a subject of rights. Despite these clarifications, those against the legalization of abortion continue to use the American Convention to support their opposition to the practice, as could be seen in many presentations of legal experts against abortion reform to the Argentine Congress in 2018 when legalization was discussed. In the struggle for abortion reform in the Southern Cone, women’s organizations have used the frame of human rights not only to refer to international law and treaties ratified by their governments, but also to place their demands within the specific local understanding of the notion of human rights.The three countries in this study experienced brutal military dictatorships during the 1970s and 1980s that were responsible for the killing, torturing and disappearance of thousands of people.To resist state repression human rights organizations emerged in these countries demanding truth and justice for the crimes committed.These movements have been significant in the democratization process and in building a strong commitment to human rights within these societies. Within this context, feminist groups have linked the fight for legal abortion to that of the human rights movement in a number of ways (Sutton and Borland 2019). Abortion activists in Argentina have used the phrase Nunca mas (never again) to refer to illegal abortion, borrowing the famous words from the title of the report of the 1984 Argentine Truth Commission on the crime of disappearance, CONADEP. They have also designed as their main icon a “green scarf ” alluding to the “white scarves” used by the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, a key organization within the Argentine human rights movement fighting for the prosecution of those responsible for crimes against humanity. On the other side of the abortion debate, clearly aware of the legitimacy and credibility that the discourse of human rights has gained, anti-choice advocates have also attempted to link their cause to that of the local human rights movements. In Chile, for example, billboards show images of the main soccer stadium used as a detention center during the Pinochet dictatorship, with the slogan “Abortion is torture, death and disappearance” equating abortion with the government crimes committed in those places. In the case of the LGBT movement, the demand of same-sex marriage was successfully framed in terms of advancing human rights (Ariza and Saldivia 2015; Diez 2015; Encarnación 2011 and 2018). The extension of the right to marry was framed as part of a wider democratizing project granting LGBT individuals the same rights as those accorded the heterosexual population.The frame of “the same rights with the same names,” borrowed from the campaign for same-sex marriage in Spain, resonated in Latin American societies, which had committed to advancing human rights after mass violations during periods of civil wars and dictatorships (Friedman 2012). The campaigns spoke of “equal rights” and

48 Abortion in Latin America

“equal marriage.” On the other side of the debate, those opposing this reform attempted to define their position within the human rights frame, too.They spoke of “the right to have a mother and a father.” The Catholic Church stated that “children have the inalienable right to develop in the bosom of their mothers … it would be an unjust discrimination against marriage and the family to approve gay marriage” (quoted in Diez 2015: 142). But the lack of international treaties or jurisprudence backing reduced the efficiency and resonance of these frames in society as a whole.The battle for the human rights frame was clearly won by LGBT activists. In the abortion debate both sides define themselves within a discourse of rights: Those of the fetus versus those of women. The fact that both sides claim to be defending human rights implies that this framework, which has been quite successful in advancing rights in other areas such as for the LGBT community, has been met with significant obstacles in the case of abortion reform. Most politicians, unsure on which side of “human rights” to stand, have preferred to avoid the discussion of abortion altogether. In addition, given that the use of the human rights frame is contested, it is possible for left-wing legislators to align with anti-choice positions and still claim their label of being “progressive,” stating they are doing so in the defense of the rights of the most vulnerable. Same-sex marriage did not offer this possibility since the other side did not advance a convincing “rights” argument. In sum, movements for abortion reform did not emerge until the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first, by which time the antichoice groups had already strengthened their voices and campaigns to reject any change. This delay, coupled with the difficulties of bringing together a coalition that crossed class and gender divides, the stigma on abortion and the contention around the human rights framework, all contributed to politicians perceiving abortion reform as a controversial issue that might derail votes from their party and candidacies. The following section describes how these obstacles played out in each of the three country cases: Uruguay, Chile and Argentina.The numerous bills of abortion reform that were presented in each case, particularly in the last two cases (see Tables 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3), which were ignored and filed without being discussed in Congress, clearly evidences this lack of political will to deal with the issue.

Abortion in the Southern Cone The politics of abortion in the Southern Cone displays many of the characteristics of the region as a whole, although in the case of Uruguay this has changed since the 2012 reform to allow legal abortion by request in the first trimester. This section provides a description of the status of abortion in these countries and the history of legal reforms and attempts at reform that took place over the years.

Abortion in Latin America

49

Regulating Abortion in Uruguay The 1898 Uruguayan criminal code penalized abortion under most circumstances as was the norm in most of the region at the time. In 1934, however, Uruguayan legislators approved a proposal for a new criminal code, which included, among other reforms, the decriminalization of abortion. The code had been drafted by a specialist in criminal law, José Irureta Goyena, who was known for his conservative stances against the liberal reforms of the Batlle y Ordóñez government, a reason why the inclusion of this clause surprised many. The rationale for the decriminalization came as a result of public health concerns.There was a recognition that women were using abortion as a contraceptive method despite the legal ban and that there was a need to prevent the risks to their health and lives through the regulation of the practice in public hospitals (Sapriza 2001). However, a reaction against this reform took shape immediately, and the decriminalization of abortion was quickly curtailed in 1935 by a Health Ministry regulation banning the practice in public hospitals, preventing those in need from access. Moreover, a strong opposition emerged in Congress among legislators from the Partido Blanco and Colorado, as well as a small Catholic party, Union Cívica. This resulted in the debate of three different bills between 1934 and 1938, culminating in a 1938 law re-criminalizing the practice – legislation that remained in effect until the 2012 reform (Abracinskas and López Gómez 2007). Under the provisions of the 1938 law a woman who consented to an abortion received a criminal sentence from three to nine months in prison.The law, however, allowed the presiding judge to reduce or eliminate the sentence if the abortion was performed in the first trimester and was the result of rape, risk to the woman’s health, lack of economic means to support a child or an intent to guard the woman’s honor. The issue of abortion did not enter the political agenda again until the years of the military dictatorship (1973–1985), with a proposal for decriminalization, although it was never adopted.The thinking behind the proposal was that it might be a means of curbing maternal mortality and reducing poverty. Until then abortion had been introduced in the political agenda and discussed merely as an issue of public health and a means to achieve other ends. Given the repressive context of this period, neither women organizations nor the feminist discourse of women’s autonomy and rights had yet been part of these discussions. After 12 years of military dictatorship, the process of democratization of the mid-1980s brought with it a gender agenda and within that the issue of abortion. Ever since the return of democracy, there has always been a bill in Congress demanding the decriminalization of abortion (see Table 1.1). The first bill proposing the decriminalization of abortion to be discussed in a Congressional commission was introduced by Communist Party deputy Rafael Sanseviero in 1993.The Committee on Bioethics approved it but it never reached the plenary session. In 2001 a group of women’s organizations launched the campaign for

50 Abortion in Latin America TABLE 1.1 Abortion Reform Bills in Uruguay: 1985–2012

Administration

Bill

Content

Status

Sanguinetti (1985–1990)

1985. Partido Colorado

Legal abortion on request.

Filed.

Lacalle (1990–1995)

1991. Frente Amplio

Legal abortion in case of rape and economic need.

Filed.

1993. Frente Amplio

Legal abortion on request.

Bioethics Committee. Filed.

Sanguinetti (1995–2000)

1998. Frente Amplio

Legal abortion on request.

Filed.

Batlle (2000–2005)

2002. Frente Amplio

Defense of reproductive health. Legal abortion on request.

Approved by Lower Chamber. Rejected in Senate.

Vazquez (2005–2010)

2005. Partido Colorado

Referendum to decide on abortion.

Filed.

2006. Frente Amplio

Defense of the right to sexual and reproductive health.

Approved by Congress.Vetoed by president.

2008. Partido Blanco

Protection of the human embryo.

Filed.

2010. Frente Amplio

Legal abortion on request in first trimester.

Passed in 2012.

Mujica (2010–2015)

legal abortion, which brought more attention to the issue.The first bill in defense of reproductive health was introduced in Congress in 2002 to respond to an increase in maternal deaths due to unsafe abortions.This bill proclaimed that the state had the main responsibility for ensuring the respect of sexual and reproductive rights, and proposed sexual education and contraception programs to diminish maternal mortality and morbidity.The bill included abortion on request until the twelfth week of pregnancy.After the first trimester abortion was legal in cases of risk to the woman’s life and health, and fetal malformations incompatible with life outside the womb.The bill passed in the Lower Chamber by a margin of 47 votes to 43. However, in May 2004 it was defeated in the Senate with 17 votes against and 13 in favor. The second attempt to decriminalize abortion was launched on June 6, 2006, when Frente Amplio legislators Margarita Percovich and Monica Xavier introduced a new Senate bill on sexual and reproductive rights, similar to the one that had been rejected by the previous legislature. On November 6, 2007, the Senate approved the bill by a margin of 18 to 13. This was followed on November 6, 2008 by its approval by a margin of only one vote (49 to 48) in the Lower Chamber.

Abortion in Latin America

51

However, ignoring the requests from his party, the Frente Amplio, on November 13, President Tabaré Vázquez (2005–2010) vetoed the chapter that contained the provisions to decriminalize abortion. The final bill, the one that became the current law, was introduced in Congress in 2010 by Frente Amplio legislators. It was approved by the Senate in December 2011 and by the Lower Chamber in October 2012. Early in the process, President José Mujica (2010–2015), also from the Frente Amplio, said he would respect Congress’ decision, eliminating the threat of a possible veto. He signed the bill one week after it passed in Congress. Under this new law abortion was made legal on request until the twelfth week of pregnancy. The law held that women must justify their decision to a medical doctor who in turn assembles a panel of three professionals (a gynecologist, a psychologist and a social worker) who are responsible for advising women on the law, the risks associated with the procedure and alternatives such as adoption. Women must then wait a minimum of five days before having the procedure.The law further stipulated that in the case of rape, abortion is allowed until week 14. In cases of risk to the woman’s health or fetal malformations incompatible with life outside the womb, there are no time restrictions. Medical institutions are required to offer these services for free in public hospitals. Religious institutions and doctors with conscience objections must ensure their patients are referred to an alternative place to provide the procedure. After abortion reform was approved by Congress and ratified by the Executive branch, those legislators who had opposed the bill along with some anti-choice organizations created the “Commission for the Repeal of the Abortion Decriminalization Law.”They argued that there had not been enough debate, that a tight circumstantial majority in Congress had passed the law and called for a popular vote to organize a referendum to repeal the law. The women’s movement organized a campaign called Yo no voto (I do not vote), stating that abortion reform had been debated in Uruguay society for over 25 years and that three comprehensive reproductive health bills had been extensively debated in Congress since 2002. The campaign was successful beyond expectations. The popular vote took place on June 23, 2013 and only 8.88% of the electorate voted in favor of a referendum, well below the 25% required by law. The restrictive abortion policy in place before the 2012 reform did not prevent women from having abortions. Before 2012 it was estimated that between 16,000 and 33,000 clandestine abortions were taking place in Uruguay every year within a population of 3.3 million people (Sanseviero 2003). In line with the Latin American trend, the law was hardly enforced. From 1989 to 1997, 82 women and 29 providers were prosecuted for the crime of abortion (Sanseviero and Rostagnol 2008). The existence of clandestine abortion made this practice the chief cause of maternal mortality. Between 2001 and 2005 unsafe abortions accounted for 37% of maternal deaths.With the implementation of harm reduction strategies through pre- and post-abortion

52 Abortion in Latin America

consultations, this rate diminished drastically to only 7.8%. This tendency has been consolidated with the legalization of abortion in 2012. Uruguay now has the second-lowest maternal mortality rate in the Western hemisphere, 15.4 per 100,000 live births in the years 2011–2015, bettered only by Canada (Briozzo et al. 2016). Since the passing of the abortion reform, there have been an average of 8,000 abortions a year (up to and including 2016), a number that is low compared to the estimations before legalization and the rates in other countries and regions of the world. This has made health professionals and reproductive rights activists believe that despite the 2012 reform, clandestine abortions are still occurring (MYSU 2017). This can be interpreted in multiple ways. There might be a lack of information among certain sectors about the availability of legal abortion. Access in certain regions might be difficult given the high level of conscientious objectors. In remote areas between 60 and 80% of the health professionals are conscientious objectors and 53% in the capital Montevideo (MYSU and International Women’s Health Coalition 2018). In addition, many women might be intimidated by the requirements set by the law of meeting with three professionals to discuss the unwanted pregnancy. Or perhaps women don’t want to subject themselves to the psychological stress of the five-day waiting period. Finally, the time limitation of the first 12 weeks may simply be inapplicable.

Regulating Abortion in Chile The 1875 Chilean Criminal Code defined abortion as a crime in all cases. The penalty for this practice ranged from three to five years for having an abortion and from 541 days to three years for providing one (Articles 342 and 345). Between 1931 and 1989, the Sanitary Code permitted the practice of therapeutic abortion – for cases in which the life of the woman is at risk – when authorized by two doctors (Article 119). In 1973, during the last months of the government of socialist president Salvador Allende, the public hospital Barros Luco in Santiago began to interpret the Sanitary Code in a more liberal fashion: Since illegal abortions were a threat to a woman’s health and life, the practice of abortions in a public hospital could be considered a “therapeutic abortion.” In addition, a program was launched to provide contraceptives to women in post-abortion situations. In the eight-month period that this experiment lasted, 2,000 abortions were performed, fewer women were treated for complications due to abortions and none of them died.This stands in comparison with the previous year, 1972 in which the hospital registered 15 cases of maternal deaths due to unsafe abortion.The September 11th coup d’état brought a halt to this experience, which has not been re-launched since (Lagos Lira 2001).

Abortion in Latin America

53

In 1980, the Pinochet regime sanctioned a new constitution, which protected the life of the unborn (Article 19). Once Pinochet lost the plebiscite to continue in power in 1988, many military officers feared that the end of their rule would lead to a liberalization of society in all its realms, much like the reaction in Spain following Franco’s death.They equated democracy with the loss of moral values.16 One of the most vocal anti-abortion officers was Jose Toribio Merino, commanderin-chief of the navy, who convened a group of navy officers, priests, economists and physicians linked to the Catholic University to propose a ban on therapeutic abortion, which Pinochet later approved. Before leaving power in 1989, Pinochet passed a law eliminating the exception of therapeutic abortion in the Sanitary Code.17 No women or experts in sexuality or public health had been represented in the group that informed this proposal (Lagos Lira 2001; Nicholls and Cuestas 2018).This left Chilean women with no possibility of having an abortion even if their lives were at risk. The return of democracy to Chile brought numerous attempts to reinstate therapeutic abortion through the introduction of bills in Congress (see Table 1.2). But, until the 2015 bill introduced by President Bachelet, none of these bills reached plenary session. On the other side of the debate, those opposing abortion

TABLE 1.2 Abortion Reform Bills in Chile: 1990–2019

Administration

Bill

Content

Status

Aylwin (1990–1994) Frei (1994–2000)

1991. Bill 499-07.PPD, PS. 1994. Bill 1297-18.

Therapeutic abortion. Increased penalties for abortion. Increased penalties for abortion. Increased penalties for abortion. Sexual and reproductive rights bill. Post-abortion consultations. Increase penalties for abortion.

Filed.

Therapeutic abortion. Constitutional protection for sexual and reproductive rights.

Health Committee

1994. Bill 1298-18

Lagos (2000–2006)

1994. Bill 1302-07. UDI. 2000. Bill 2608-11.PS, DC, PPD, PR, FRVS, RN, UDI, independent. 2002. Bill 2978-07.UDI, independent. 2003. Bill 3197-11. PPD, PS, RN, PR. 2004. Bill 3702-07. PPD.

Filed. Filed. Rejected (1998). Health Committee.

Filed.

Committee on Constitution, Legislation and Justice. Continued

54 Abortion in Latin America TABLE 1.2 continued

Administration

Bill

Content

Status

Bachelet (2006–2010)

2006. Bill 4121-07. UDI.

Increases quorum for decriminalization of abortion.

2006. Bill 4122-07. UDI.

Only constitutional reform can decriminalize abortion. Clarify medical procedures criminalized in relationship to crime of abortion. Therapeutic abortion in cases of risk to life, health, fetal malformation, rape or mentally disabled minor. Decriminalization until 12 weeks on women’s request. In cases of risk to physical or mental health and rape with no limits. Legal abortion in case of risk to woman’s life or health. Bill on sexual and reproductive rights. Does not include abortion. Therapeutic abortion.

Committee on Constitution, Legislation and Justice. Committee on Constitution, Legislation and Justice. Health Committee.

2006. Bill 4447-11. RN.

2006. Bill 4751-11. PPD.

2006. Bill PPD.

2007. Bill 4845-11. PR, PPD, PS, independents. 2008. Bill 5933-11. PPD, PR, PS, DC, UDI, RN. 2009. Bill 6420-11. PS, PR, PPD, independent. 2009. Bill 6420-11. PS. 2009. Bill 6544-11. PPD, PS.

Therapeutic abortion. Therapeutic abortion in cases of risk to women’s life, fetal malformations and rape during the first 12 weeks.

Health Committee.

Inadmissible.

Health Committee. Filed.

Committee on Constitution, Legislation and Justice. Health Committee. Health Committee.

Abortion in Latin America

55

Administration

Bill

Content

Status

Piñera (2010–2014)

2010. Bill 6845-07. PS, PPD.

Therapeutic abortion.

2013. Bill 8925-11. DC, PS, PC, PPD.

Abortion in case of risk to woman’s life and health, fetal malformations and rape. MILEs bill. Abortion in case of risk to woman’s life, fetal malformation and rape. Abortion in case of risk to woman’s life, fetal malformation and rape. Legal abortion until 12 weeks.

Committee on Constitution, Legislation and Justice. Health Committee.

2013. Bill 9021-11.

Bachelet (2014–2018)

2014. Bill 9418-11. PS, PPD, independent. 2014. Bill 9480-11. PS, PPD, independent. 2015. Bill 9895-11. Executive branch.

Piñera (2018–2022)

2018. Bill 12038-34. PC, RD, PS, PPD, PODER, independents.

Abortion in case of risk to woman’s life, fetal malformation and rape. Legal abortion on request until 14 weeks.

Filed.

Filed.

Filed.

Passed in 2017.

Committee on Women and Gender Equality.

introduced ten different bills to increase criminalization even further, but they were rejected as well. In 2017, Congress approved Bachelet’s bill, legalizing abortion under three circumstances: Risk to the woman’s life, fetal malformations, and rape. In this last case the abortion would be legal only until week 12, or week 14 if the case involved a girl under 14 years of age. Medical personnel would have the right to be conscientious objectors but should refer the patient to a professional who would provide the care. In cases of imminent threat to the life of the woman, doctors could not refuse to provide the abortion – unless another professional was available. Immediately after Congress passed the abortion reform, the right-wing coalition Chile Vamos introduced a judicial presentation to the Constitutional Tribunal claiming the law was unconstitutional. After listening to more than 135 organizations express their positions in favor of and against the bill, the Constitutional Tribunal ruled in favor of the law. In addition, the Court expanded the right to

56 Abortion in Latin America

become a conscientious objector to institutions – and to all those that take part in the abortion, not just medical professionals. The regulation easing the path for conscientious objectors continued to create controversies throughout the following years. In response, in 2017 the Health Ministry released a protocol stating that medical institutions that received subsidies from the state could not claim an objection of institutional conscience and refuse to provide abortions permitted under the exceptions. In 2018 the new right-wing administration of Sebastián Piñera produced a new protocol giving all medical institutions the possibility of being objectors.This was challenged in court but in December of 2018 the Constitutional Tribunal ruled in favor of this protocol. As a result, 47.2% of medical personnel have declared themselves conscientious objectors in the case of rape (Corporación Humanas 2018). The restrictive regulation of abortions in Chile has not stopped women from having them. Estimations of the number of abortions annually differ.The Health Ministry states that there are 33,000 abortions every year, while the Universidad Diego Portales estimates the number to be from 60,000 to 70,000, in a population of 18 million people (Amnesty International 2014). In line with the trend in the region, fewer and fewer of these illegal abortions end up being prosecuted. Between 1990 and 1998, 474 people were convicted for practicing abortion, of whom 80% were women (Lagos Lira 2001). Between 2010 and 2017 there were an average of 160 investigations for the crime of abortion every year, but only 109 convictions (Corporación Humanas 2018). One thing that stands out in Chile is the low maternal mortality for unsafe abortion, despite the highly restrictive laws. In 2015, maternal mortality stood at 22.8 per 100,000 live births, and those deaths caused by unsafe abortion represented only 12.3% of the total.The reason for this low mortality lies in the strong and efficient public health services in the country.Women arrive in the hospital with incomplete abortions and infections, but they are treated in the emergency rooms and their lives are saved.18

Regulating Abortion in Argentina The first criminal code in Argentina was drafted in 1887 and, in line with colonial regulations, penalized abortion under all circumstances, punishing both the woman and the person who performed the procedure. In 1903, a criminal reform increased the penalties for abortion from three to six and ten years, respectively, depending on the circumstances. It did, however, decriminalize unsuccessful attempts at abortion. In 1921, in the context of a larger reform of the criminal code, the regulation on abortion changed to the law that has been in place until today. A group of three jurists brought Argentine legislation in line with current trends in criminology and medicine in Europe, and they proposed exceptions to the total ban on

Abortion in Latin America

57

abortion. Article 86 of this new code allowed the practice of abortion to be legal under two circumstances: A risk to the mother’s health and if the pregnancy was a product of rape or an attack to the honor of a mentally disabled woman. The article was inspired by a Swiss law and the ambiguities caused by the translation have generated controversies around its interpretation ever since. Those against legal abortion have interpreted the article as allowing this practice only in the case of rape of a mentally disabled woman.Those in favor of legal abortion have argued that the exception encompasses all cases of rape. In 1966, the authoritarian government of Onganía clarified this article. On the one hand, it added requirements that were not in the original code for an abortion to be legal – such as the need for a criminal suit to be initiated – and inserted the word “serious” when referring to the risk to the mother’s health; on the other hand, it ruled in favor of the more liberal interpretation of the article, stating that all cases of abortions after rape were to be considered as non-punishable.19 This clarification was revoked and reinstated two different times over the next 20 years, beginning in 1973, when the newly elected democratic government revoked all of Onganía’s reforms, including this one.20 Article 86 then regained its original form. In March of 1976 a coup d’état ousted the 1973 democratic government, a new criminal code was promulgated and, within it, Onganía’s version of Article 86 was included.21 However, once again, after the 1983 democratic transition, the Alfonsín administration revoked all criminal reforms passed by the military regime, a measure that restored Article 86 to its 1921 version.22 Over the next 30 years, the controversies about its interpretation resurfaced and were not solved until the 2012 Supreme Court ruling.That year, the Supreme Court heard a case of a 15-year-old girl raped by her step-father, left pregnant and denied a legal abortion (Case F.A.L.). The court ruled not only that this abortion was legal but also that abortion was legal in all cases of rape, finally putting an end to the 80-year-old controversy. Ever since the return of democracy, legislators have introduced many bills to both liberalize and criminalize abortion even more. Given the large number of bills introduced in Congress in Argentina compared to the other two countries, Table 1.3 codes the number of bills based on whether they advance, restrict or are neutral towards access to abortion. The number of bills liberalizing abortion has dramatically increased throughout the years, while the number of those restricting it has decreased. Among those categorized as restrictions, total bans were only suggested in the early years and disappeared completely when the debate on this issue became whether to defend the status quo or increase access to abortion. After the 2018 abortion debate, those who oppose the legalization of abortion learnt that their margin of maneuver to increase restrictions was null, so they began to propose bills to protect pregnant women and give them options rather than abortion, which despite coming from these anti-choice sectors are codified here as neutral for not restricting per se access to the practice, at least not directly.Table 1.3 clearly shows the high level of stasis and support for the status

Kirchner (2003–2007)

Duhalde (2002–2003)

De la Rua (1999–2001)

Alfonsín (1983–1989) Menem (1989–1999)

Administration

Total Number of Bills 5 13

5

2

37

Number of Neutral Bills 0 0

0

0

Decide by popular vote: 1

Number of Bills Restricting Abortion Access Total bans: 3 Total bans: 4

0

0

Criminalization of Misoprostol: 4 Criminalize medical abortion: 2

Expand cases of rape: 2

Legal abortion on demand: 4 Expand cases of rape: 3 Fetal malformation: 1 Reduce penalties: 1 Legal abortion on demand: 2 Fetal malformation: 1 Abortion is a human right: 1 Expand cases of rape: 1 Legal abortion on demand: 1 Fetal malformations and physical and mental health: 1 Legal abortion on demand: 3 Abortion is a human right: 1 Expand cases of rape: 4 Fetal malformations: 15 Fetal malformations and mental health: 3 Fetal malformations and socio-economic reasons: 1 Exempt doctors from reporting abortions: 2 Create a commission to draft a bill to legalize abortion: 1

Number of Bills Expanding Abortion Access

TABLE 1.3 Abortion Reform Bills in Argentina: 1983–2019

58 Abortion in Latin America

Total Number of Bills 71

50

Number of Neutral Bills Decide by popular vote: 5 Adoption while pregnant: 2 Conscientious objection: 2 Regulate the use of Misoprostol: 2

Decide by popular vote: 11 Adoption during pregnancy: 2 Reparations to children of those dead by unsafe abortion: 2 Changes to criminal code: 2 Regulate Misoprostol: 2 Protect women with unwanted pregnancies: 3

Number of Bills Restricting Abortion Access Ban rape: 3 Restrict abortion in cases of rape: 3 Restrict access to Misoprostol: 2 Criminalize Misoprostol: 7 Increase penalties: 1 Criminalize abortion publicity: 1 Rights of the unborn: 2 Legal abortion only when life of woman is at risk: 1 Create phone center “Yes to life”: 3 Ban Misoprostol: 1

Number of Bills Expanding Abortion Access

Legal abortion on demand: 6 Expand access to legal abortions: 21 Fetal malformations: 8 Physical and mental health: 1 Exempt doctors from reporting abortions: 1

Legal abortion on demand: 13 National protocol for abortion: 1 Fetal malformations: 1 Expand cases of rape: 1 Fetal malformation and physical and emotional health: 2 Include Misoprostol in health plans: 2 Public production of Misoprostol: 5 Reduce penalties: 2

Fernández de Kirchner (2007–2015)

Macri (2015–2019)

Administration

Abortion in Latin America 59

60 Abortion in Latin America

quo of the Argentine Congress for this issue. From 1983 until 2018 there were approximately 150 bills proposing to advance or restrict abortion, none of which reached plenary session to be voted on. After decades of avoiding the issue of abortion, on April 10, 2018, Congress for the first time debated a bill to change the regulation of abortion that had been in place since 1921. One of the bills discussed on this occasion was the one drafted by the national campaign for legal, safe and free abortion.The campaign had been introducing a bill to legalize abortion on request during the first trimester since 2008 without success.The changes in the political context and the growth of the movement behind abortion reform created an opening that allowed for this congressional discussion to take place for the first time in the history of the country.The debate mobilized society as a whole. More than 700 experts presented their views both in favor of and against reform in Congress. Hundreds of thousands of activists mobilized to support or oppose this reform outside the legislative building. On June 13, 2018, the Lower Chamber approved the bill by 129 to 125 votes. On August 8, the bill failed to pass in the Senate by 38 to 31 votes.An analysis of these events using the book’s theoretical framework is provided in the Conclusion. The impact this restrictive legislation has had on women’s lives is significant. Maternal mortality in Argentina is the highest of the three countries. In 2010, maternal mortality stood at 44 per 100,000 live births, double that of Chile and four times that of Uruguay. Unsafe abortions represent 20.5% of those deaths, being the leading cause of maternal mortality in the country (ADC et al. 2012). Estimates indicate that at least 3,040 women have died from unsafe abortions in the years between the 1983 democratic transition and 2016 (Alcaraz 2019).A 2005 investigation by the National Health Ministry estimated between 486,000 and 522,000 illegal abortions annually in a population of 44 million (Zurbriggen and Anzorena 2013).As in the rest of the region, few of these illegal abortions end up in convictions. An IPAS investigation revealed that between 1996 and 2008 there were 234 convictions for abortion.The particularity in Argentina is that of those who are convicted, 80% are providers, mostly midwifes and nurses, and only 20% the women that had abortions.23

Notes 1. Latin America is defined here as including the former colonies of Spain and Portugal, more specifically as equal to Ibero-America. 2. The rest of the Mexican states have legal abortion under certain circumstances, the only reason in common throughout being that of rape. As a backlash against the legalization of abortion on request in Mexico City, many states have included constitutional clauses stating that life begins at conception. 3. See Paulina Ramirez v. Mexico. See also Resolución de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, May 29, 2013. Medidas provisionales respecto de El Salvador. 4. The Guttmacher Institute reports data including both Latin America and the Caribbean as a whole. 5. CIDH, Acceso a servicios de salud maternal desde una perspectiva de derechos humanos.

Abortion in Latin America

61

6. CEDAW, Recomendación general 24. Artículo 12 de la CEDAW. La mujer y la salud, period 20 of sessions, February 5, 1999. 7. See El País,“El Papa amenaza con excomulgar a los políticos que favorezcan el aborto. Benedicto XVI subraya en Brasil que la Iglesia no dejará de fortalecer la familia tradicional.” May 10, 2007. 8. Data do not include Cuba or Venezuela. 9. Evangelicals refers here to a group of churches within Protestantism that interpret the Bible literally and believe in the centrality of the born-again experience. 10. The exemption being the legalization of abortion in Mexico City since 2007 and Oaxaca since 2019. 11. Interview with with Argentine legislator, Buenos Aires, October 10, 2012. 12. This measure, known as the Mexico City policy or the “gag rule,” was announced by President Ronald Reagan in the UN conference on population in Mexico City in 1984. Ever since, every Democrat president has repealed it and every Republican president has restored it. 13. Latin American countries included in this wave were: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay. 14. Baby Boy v. USA, Case 2141, Resolution 23/81, March 6, 1981. 15. Artavia Murillo y otros (“Fecundación in vitro”) v. Costa Rica, Ser. C N0 257, November 28, 2012. 16. Interview with member of Corporacion Humanas, Corporación Humanas, Santiago de Chile, October 29, 2007. 17. Law 18,826, September 15, 1989. 18. Interview with Teresa Valdes, Health Ministry, Santiago de Chile, Chile,August 3, 2016. 19. Law No. 17,567. 20. Law No. 20,509. 21. Law No. 21,338. 22. Law No. 23,077. 23. See Página 12,“La vida o la cárcel.” November 17, 2013.

Bibliography Abracinskas, Lilian and Alejandra López Gómez 2007. Aborto en Debate. Dilemas y Desafíos del Uruguay Democrático. Proceso Político y social 2001–2004. Montevideo: MYSU. ADC-GIRE. 2012. Informe sobre la situación de la accesibilidad al aborto no punible en América Latina y el Caribe. ADC, CDD, CEDES, CELS, CLADEM, ELA, FOCO, Foro DDRR, Insgenar. 2012. Comunicación conjunta para examen periódico universal. Argentina. Los derechos sexuales y reproductivos. Alcántara, Manuel and Cristina Rivas. 2018. “América Latina: políticos mas católicos, sociedades mas plurales.” Estudios de Política Exterior. www.politicaeterior.com/latinoamerica-analisis/. Alcaraz, Maria Florencia. 2019. ¡Que sea ley! La lucha de los feminismos por el aborto legal. Buenos Aires: Editorial Marea. Amnesty International. 2014. On the Brink of Death:Violence against Women and the Abortion Ban in El Salvador. London:Amnesty International LTD. Anzorena, Claudia and Sabrina Yáñez. 2013. “Narrar la ambilalencia desde el cuerpo: dialogo sobre nuestras propias experiencias en torno a la ‘no maternidad’.” Investigaciones Feministas 4: 221–239. Ariza, Sonia and Laura Saldivia. 2015 “Matrimonio igualitario e identidad de genero si, aborto no.” Derecho y Critica Social 1 (1): 181–209.

62 Abortion in Latin America

Ávila González,Yanina. 2005.“Mujeres frente a los espejos de la maternidad: las que eligen no ser madres.” Desacatos 17: 107–126. Blofield, Merike. 2006. The Politics of Moral Sin. Abortion and Divorce in Spain, Chile and Argentina. New York: Routledge. Briozzo, Leonel. 2002. Iniciativas sanitarias contra el aborto provocado en condiciones de riesgo: Aspectos clínicos, epidemiológicos, médico legales, bioéticos y jurídicos. Montevideo: Sindicato Medico del Uruguay. Briozzo, Leonel, Rodolfo Gómez Ponce de León, Giselle Tomasso and Anibal Faundes. 2016. “Mortalidad maternal total y asociada al aborto en los últimos 25 años en el Uruguay y su relación con políticas y acciones de protección de los derechos de la mujer.” International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics 134 (1): 20–24. Campana, Maximiliano. 2015. “Hacia una nueva conceptualización del litigio estratégico: la judicialización de los derechos sexuales y reproductivos por parte de sectores ‘pro vida’.” In Juan Cruz Esquivel and Juan Marco Vaggione, eds. Permeabilidades activas: religión, política y sexualidad en la Argentina democrática. Buenos Aires: Editorial Biblos. Cardenas, Roosbelinda,Ana Labandera, Sarah Baum, Fernanda Chiribao, Ivana Leus, Silvia Avondet and Jennifer Friedman. 2018 “It’s Something That Marks You:Abortion Stigma after Decriminalization in Uruguay.” Reproductive Health 15 (150): 1–11. Catholic Church. 2012. Cathechism of the Catholic Church.Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Checa, Susana. 2006. Realidades y coyunturas del aborto. Entre el derecho y la necesidad. Buenos Aires: Paidós. Chiarotti, Susana. 2006. “El aborto en el marco de los derechos humanos. La situación de Argentina.” In Susana Checa, ed. Realidades y coyunturas del aborto: Entre el derecho y la necesidad. Buenos Aires: Paidós. Corporación Humanas. 2018. Realidad del aborto en Chile. Revisión de información estadística. Craske, Nikki. 1999. Women and Politics in Latin America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Diez, Jordi. 2015. The Politics of Gay Marriage in Latin America: Argentina, Chile and Mexico. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Drovetta, Raquel. 2015. “Safe Abortion Information Hotlines: An Effective Strategy for Increasing Women’s Access to Safe Abortions in Latin America.” Reproductive Health Matters 23 (45): 47–57. Encarnación, Omar. 2011. “Latin America’s Gay Rights Revolution.” Journal of Democracy 22 (2): 104–118. Encarnación, Omar. 2018.“A Latin American Puzzle: Gay Rights Landscapes in Argentina and Brazil.” Human Rights Quarterly 40: 194–218. Franceschet, Susan, Jennifer Piscopo and Gwynn Thomas. 2015.“Super Madres, Maternal Legacies and Women’s Political Participation in Contemporary Latin America.” Journal of Latin American Studies 48: 1–32. Friedman, Elizabeth. 2012. “Constructing ‘the Same Rights with the Same Names’: The Impact of Spanish Norm Diffusion on Marriage Equality in Argentina.” Latin American Politics and Society 54 (4): 29–59. Garrard-Burnett,Virgina, Paul Freston and Stephen C. Dove. 2016. The Cambridge History of Religions in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gould, Jens Erik. 2008.“Too Late for Martha.” New Internationalist January/February: 13–14. Grosso, Belén and Ruth Zurbriggen. 2016.“Coaliciones y alianzas entre activistas feministas y el Sistema de salud: relato de una experiencia situada en pos del derecho a abortar.” REDAAS 8.

Abortion in Latin America

63

Guttmacher Institute. 2018. Abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean. Fact Sheet. www. guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/abortion-latin-america-and-caribbean. Guzman Bouvard, Marguerite. 2004. Revolutionizing Motherhood: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo. Lanham, MD: SR Books. Heumann, Silke and Jan Willem Duyvendak. 2015. “When and Why Religious Groups become Political Players:The Pro-Life Movement in Nicaragua.” In James Jasper and Jan Willem Duyvendak, eds. Players and Arenas:The Interactive Dynamics of Protest. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Htun, Mala. 2003. Sex and the State: Abortion, Divorce and the Family under Latin American Dictatorships and Democracies. New York: Cambridge University Press. Htun, Mala and Laurel Weldon. 2013. “Feminist Mobilization and Progressive Policy Change: Why Governments Take Action to Combat Violence Against Women?” Gender and Development 21 (2): 231–248. Htun, Mala and Laurel Weldon. 2018. The Logics of Gender Justice: State Action on Women’s Rights Around the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hyman, Alyson, Kelly Blanchard, Francine Coeytaux, Daniel Grossman and Alexandra Teixeira. 2013.“Misoprostol in Women’s Hands:A Harm Reduction Strategy for Unsafe Abortion.” Contraception 87: 128–130. John Paul II. 1988. Mulieris Dignitatem: Apostolic Letter of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II on the Dignity and Vocation of Women on the Occasion of the Marian Year. Kampwirth, Karen. 2008. “Abortion, Antifeminism, and the Return of Daniel Ortega: In Nicaragua, Leftist Politics?” Latin American Perspectives 35: 122–136. Kane, Gillian, Beatriz Galli and Patty Skuster. 2013. Cuando el aborto es un crimen. La amenaza para mujeres vulnerables en America Latina. Chapel Hill, NC: IPAS. Kumar, Anuradha, Leila Hessini and Ellen M. Mitchell. 2009. “Conceptualizing Abortion Stigma.” Culture Health and Sexuality 11 (6): 625–639. Lagos Lira, Claudia. 2001. Aborto en Chile: El deber de parir. Santiago de Chile: LOM ediciones. Lamas, Marta. 2014.“Entre el stigma y la ley: La interrupcion legal del embarazo en el DF.” Salud Publica de Mexico 56 (1): 56–62. López Gómez,Alejandra. 2015.“Profesionales de la salud y aborto. Posibilidades y resistencias a la incorporación del enfoque de derechos en las practicas de las/os profesionales de la salud.” In Silvina Ramos, ed. Investigación sobre aborto en América Latina y el Caribe. Mexico City: CLACAI. Matia, Maria Gisela, Eugenia Cualli de Trumper, Nery Fures and Jimena Orchuela. 2016. “Una replicación del modelo uruguayo en la provincial de Buenos Aires, Argentina, como una política pública para reducir la mortalidad maternal.” International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics 134 (1): 33–36. McReynolds Pérez, Julia. 2017. “No Doctors Required: Lay Activist Expertise and Pharmaceutical Abortion in Argentina.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 42 (2): 349–375. Meier, Kenneth J. 1999.“Drugs, Sex, Rock and Roll:A Theory of Morality Politics.” Policy Studies Journal 27 (4): 681–695. Miller, Francesca. 1991. Latin American Women and the Search for Social Justice. Hannover, NH: University Press of New England. Mooney, Christopher Z. 1999.“The Politics of Morality Policy: Symposium Editor’s Introduction.” Policy Studies Journal 27 (4): 675–680. Moran Faundes, Jose Manuel. 2015.“Aborto e Iglesias. Cuatro focos analíticos en América Latina.” In Silvina Ramos, ed. Investigación sobre aborto en América Latina y el Caribe. Una agenda renovada para informar políticas públicas e incidencia. Mexico City: CLACAI.

64 Abortion in Latin America

Morgan, Lynn. 2014. “Claiming Rosa Parks: Conservative Catholic Bids for ‘Rights’ in Contemporary Latin America.” Culture, Health and Sexuality 16 (10): 1245–1259. Morgan, Lynn and Elizabeth Roberts. 2012.“Reproductive Governance in Latin America.” Anthropology & Medicine 19 (2): 241–254. Mourao Permoser, Julia. 2019. “What are Morality Policies? The Politics of Values in a Post-Secular World.” Political Studies Review 17 (3): 310–325. Mucciaroni, Gary 2011.“Are Debates about Morality Policy Really about Morality? Framing Opposition to Gay and Lesbian Rights.” Policy Studies Journal 39 (2): 187–216. MYSU. 2017. Los servicios de salud sexual y reproductiva y aborto legal. Monitoreo 2013/2017. Montevideo: MYSU. MYSU and International Women’s Health Coalition. 2018. No es conciencia. Cuando los proveedores niegan la atención del aborto. Montevideo: MYSU. Nicholls, Leslie and Fedra Cuestas. 2018. “Penalización del aborto: violencia política y abusos de la memoria en Chile.” Saude Soc Sao Paulo 27 (2): 367–380. Oberman, Michelle. 2018. Her Body, Our Laws: On the Frontlines of the Abortion War, from El Salvador to Oklahoma. Boston, MA: Beacon Press books. Pecheny, Mario. 2011.“Yo no soy progre, soy peronista. ¿Porque es tan difícil discutir políticamente sobre aborto?” In Paola Bergallo and Agustina Ramón Michel, eds. Aborto y justicia reproductiva. Buenos Aires: Editorial del Puerto. Pew Research Center. 2014.“Religion in Latin America:Widespread Change in a Historically Catholic Region.” https://pewforum.org. Pius XI. 1930. Casti Connubii. Encyclical on Christian Marriage to the Venerable Brethren, Patriarchs, Primates,Archbishops, Bishops and other Local Ordinaries Enjoying Peace and Communion with the Apostolic See. Ramm,Alejandra and Jasmine Gideon. 2019. Motherhood, Social Policies and Women’s Activism in Latin America. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Ramos, Silvina, Mariana Romer y Lila Aizenberg. 2014. “Women’s Experiences with the Use of Medical Abortion in a Legally Restricted Context: The Case of Argentina.” Reproductive Health Matters 43: 1–12. Reutersward, Camila, Par Zetterberg, Suruchi Thapar and Maxine Molyneux. 2011. “Abortion Law Reforms in Colombia and Nicaragua: Issue Networks and Opportunity Contexts.” Development and Change 42 (3): 805–831. Sanseviero, Rafael. 2003. Condena, tolerancia y negacion. El aborto en Uruguay. Montevideo: Centro Internacional de Investigacion e Informacion para la Paz. Sanseviero, Rafael and and Susana Rostagnol. 2008. Barreras. Investigación y Análisis sobre el Acceso de las Mujeres al Derecho a Decidir. Montevideo:AUPF y Ruda. Sapriza, Graciela. 2001.“La despenalización del aborto en el Uruguay (1934–38).” Presentation on May 28, 2001, Montevideo, Uruguay. Savage, Deborah. 2009. “Women and the Catholic Social Tradition.” In Paul Sullins and Anthony J. Blasi, eds. Catholic Social Thought:American Reflections on the Compendium. Lanham, MD Lexington Books. Shellenberg, Kristen, Ann Moore, Akinrinola Bankole, Fatima Juarez, Adekunbi Kehinde Omideyi, Nancy Palomino, Zeba Sathar, Susheela Singh and Amy Tsui. 2011. “Social Stigma and Disclosure about Induced Abortion: Results from an Exploratory Study.” Global Public Health 6 (1): 111–125. Shepard, Bonnie. 2006. Running the Obstacle Course to Sexual and Reproductive Health: Lessons from Latin America.Westport, CT: Praeger.

Abortion in Latin America

65

Socorristas. 2019. Sistematización de acompañamientos a abortar realizados en el año 2018 por Socorristas en Red. https://socorristasenred.org/sistematizacion-2018/. Sorhaindo, Annik, Clara Juarez Ramirez, Claudia Diaz Olavarrieta, Evelyn Aldaz, Maria Consuelo Mejia Pineros and Sandra Garcia. 2014. Women and Health 54 (7): 622–640. Stark, Rodney and Buster G. Smith. 2012.“Pluralism and the Churching of Latin America.” Latin American Politics and Society 54 (2): 35–50. Steele, Cynthia and Susana Chiarotti. 2004. “With Everything Exposed: Cruelty in Post-Abortion Care in Rosario,Argentina.” Reproductive Health Matters 12 (24): 39–46. Stephen, Lynn and Maria Teresa Tula. 1994. Hear My Testimony: Maria Teresa Tula, Human Rights Activist in El Salvador. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Sutton, Barbara and Elizabeth Borland. 2019.“Abortion and Human Rights for Women in Argentina.” Frontiers:A Journal of Women Studies 40 (2): 27–61. Tavara Orozco, Luis, Susana Chavez, Daniel Grossman, Diana Lara and Martha María Blandón. 2009.“Disponibilidad y uso obstétrico del misoprostol en los países de América Latina y el Caribe.” Revista peruana de ginecología y obstetricia 54 (4): 253–263. Tribe, Laurence. 1990. Abortion:The Clash of Absolutes. New York: Norton & Company. Vaggione, Juan Marco. 2005.“Reactive Politicization and Religious Dissidence:The Political Mutations of the Religious.” Social Theory and Practice 31 (2): 233–255. Winocour, Mariana. 2006,“Paulina, un caso paradigmático.” Debate Feminista 17 (43): 185–205. Zurbriggen, Ruth and Claudia Anzorena. 2013. El aborto como derecho de las mujeres. Otra historia es posible. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Herramienta. Zurbriggen, Ruth, Brianna Keefe-Oates and Caitlin Gerdts. 2018. “Accompaniment of Second Trimester Abortions:The Model of the Feminist Socorrista Network of Argentina.” Contraception 97: 108–115.

2 THE CASE OF URUGUAY Working Together towards Comprehensive Abortion Reform1

The women that are in the Legislative branch, in the Executive, those that are part of the social movement, we come together each from a different place to form a “plier” so that the programs that we understand are necessary are put in place and implemented the right way. Margarita Percovich, legislator from the Frente Amplio, September 20072

On October 17, 2012, after an 11-year campaign for abortion reform and two failed attempts to pass legislation in Congress, Uruguay became the second country in Latin America (after Cuba) to legalize abortion upon request during the first trimester. Women’s movements throughout the region welcomed the news as the first step in a wave of abortion liberalization in Latin America. Journalistic reports meanwhile heralded this reform as the manifestation of the Pink Tide coupled with the secular tradition of Uruguay.The story behind this reform, however, is far more fraught and complicated than the headline suggests. As this chapter demonstrates, abortion reform came about in Uruguay thanks to a collaboration between civil society activists and the left-wing government of the Frente Amplio, and a particularly propitious institutional context that made this possible. The first chapter argued that women’s movements for abortion reform establish different interaction patterns with state actors in the advancement of their demands, which in turn leads to different policy outcomes. The particular characteristics of these interactions depend on the relative strengths of the social movement, institutional variables, Executive preferences and the power of the Catholic Church. Uruguay demonstrates how a strong women’s movement, taking advantage of an open and receptive political system and a highly secular

The Case of Uruguay

67

society, designed a path of collaboration with sympathetic allies in power that led to a successful, comprehensive abortion reform. The first section of this chapter provides the political and institutional context in which abortion reform took place. Uruguay has a venerable democratic tradition. Its party system is highly institutionalized. Notably, it has a strong left-wing party with deep roots in society and it boasts strong division of powers, particularly in comparison to other Latin American countries.This first section explores the above points and ends with a discussion of the strong secularism and relatively weak role of the Catholic Church. The second section focuses on the women’s movement itself – and how the abortion reform movement emerged from a history of feminist and democratic movements challenging the dictatorship in the 1970s. I trace that history of the women’s struggle before turning in detail to the strategies and political repertoires pursued by the campaign for abortion reform, launched in 2001. I assess the strength of the campaign based on the indicators discussed in the introductory chapter: The number of organizations, support of key social actors, media presence, public opinion support and protests. The third section analyzes the different phases within the relationship between the campaign for legal abortion and legislators in Congress.

Political Context: An Institutionalized Democracy “Because here nobody is better than anyone else.” This phrase, common among Uruguayans, speaks to the deep roots of Uruguayan democracy, a feature that makes this country an exception in a highly politically unstable region. Usually ranked as the most democratic country in Latin America by both academic and journalistic indexes (Chasquetti and Buquet 2004), Uruguay offers a unique institutional context for social movements to develop and interact with officials in power. In other words, certain features of Uruguay’s political system increased the chances of creating bonds between the women’s movement and potentially sympathetic legislators, thereby facilitating the passing of abortion reform in Congress. This section will analyze those distinct features in order to understand why and how the movements made the choices they did. Unlike the more personalistic party systems in countries such as Argentina, in which movements may attempt to influence presidents directly, in Uruguay movements mostly develop strategies to work through political parties to give their demands legislative voice.The stronger separation of powers between the Executive and Legislative branches, especially when compared to the other two cases in Argentina and Chile, diminished the role the Executive had in establishing the congressional agenda, which in turn allowed for the abortion debate to air – despite the opposition of the president. The existence of a strong leftist party, the Frente Amplio, with roots in the labor movement and organized civil society – including feminist organizations – meant

68 The Case of Uruguay

the movement was able to negotiate with a stable interlocutor with clear and steady positions on abortion. In other Latin American countries such as Argentina, leftist parties have been electorally insignificant and characterized by fragmentation, lack of co-operation and high electoral volatility.This political landscape has made the establishment of stable links between movements and Congress an almost insurmountable task. Given the fact Uruguay is one of the countries in Latin America with a weaker Catholic Church, legislators have felt less intimidated by this institution’s pressures when voting, creating a context more conducive to the establishment of alliances between women’s organizations and government allies.

Party System and Left-Wing Political Parties For over a century, Uruguay’s government was dominated by the Blancos and the Colorados, traditional conservative and liberal political parties, respectively. Both founded in 1836, they alternated rule and dominated Uruguay’s political system through the nineteenth and most of the twentieth century, initially through violent clashes and increasingly, particularly after the 1918 Constitution, through peaceful sharing of power (Chasquetti and Buquet 2004). In the late 1950s and 1960s increasing unrest due to economic crisis and the incapacity of the traditional political parties to find a way out of the political crisis resulted in Colorado President Juan Maria Bordaberry and the armed forces launching a coup d’état in 1973. Uruguay then witnessed 12 years of a military dictatorship, which resulted in the imprisonment of close to 6,000 citizens, giving the country the sad record of having the highest per-capita rate of political imprisonment in the world at the time (Rico 2008).Two years earlier, in 1971, a left-wing coalition termed Frente Amplio (Broad Front) emerged as a challenger of the Blancos and Colorados, slowly eroding their domination of the political system. Bringing together the communists, socialists, Christian democrats and some independents, the Frente Amplio established itself as a force with a strong 18% of the vote in that year’s elections. After democracy was restored in 1985, the Frente Amplio increasingly gained electoral power, winning the presidency for the first time in 2004, and again in 2009 and 2014. The 12-year military dictatorship remains a political anomaly. Otherwise, Uruguay has proved one of the most stable and long-lasting democracies in the region. It has a long-standing, highly institutionalized party system, one of the few that have followed the trajectory of the European consolidated democracies (Mainwaring and Scully 1995; Cason 2002; González 1995; Moreira 2006; Mainwaring 2018). The stability and institutionalization of the party system makes parties important players. Some scholars have even characterized Uruguay as a partidocracia (partidocracy) in which parties and not the people rule (Caetano et al. 1989; Chasquetti and Buquet 2004; Moreira 2012). In the last 40 years three parties have won 95% of the votes; each of them is ideologically consistent and highly disciplined (Bertelsmann Stiftung 2016).

The Case of Uruguay

69

Of particular interest for this study are the characteristics of the main leftist political party, the Frente Amplio, a “party of coalition” that at the present includes 22 different left-wing parties, the most prominent being the Socialist Party, the Movement for Popular Participation (MPP), Uruguay Assembly, the Communist Party, New Space and the Artiguista Branch. To differentiate the Frente Amplio from a political coalition like the Chilean Concertación, Uruguayan political scientist Oscar Botinelli explains that “the Frente Amplio is a party of coalition and the Concertación a coalition of parties” (Tartakoff 2013). He calls the Frente Amplio a “federative type of party” with its own structure, affiliates, internal discipline and election of its own authorities. Its original support base came from unions and progressive middle classes and it has since emphasized their participation in the party (Yaffé 2013). In the last 15 years the Frente Amplio has begun to reach out to those in the center of the ideological spectrum who have become disillusioned with the traditional political parties, which partly explains its electoral success in three of the last four presidential elections. However, what makes this transformation unique is that the party has evolved into a more professional political party without abandoning its commitment to the bases. Unlike shifts generated in other cases such as by the parties of the Concertación in Chile, the outreach of the Frente Amplio has been accompanied by an effort to develop and strengthen its roots in society (Luna 2007). The Frente Amplio uses a semi-institutionalized system to consult with and coordinate between base organizations and the party. This approach allows for regular consultation about party goals, strategy and policies.An advisor to President Vázquez (2005–2010 and 2015–2019) explains how this works: “The model is that technical experts draw up a proposal, but then it goes to the base.We don’t want a technocratic democracy … we never want the Frente to lose its status as a movement” (Pribble 2013: 129). In addition, the internal competition among the parties within the coalition and the fact that the Frente Amplio was in the opposition for so long before winning a presidential election created incentives for party elites to be in constant communication with the bases. One of the Frente Amplio’s legislators explains this dynamic: we are part of a political organization with grassroots committees in each neighborhood, which despite having seen their role eroded since the time of the movement in the 1970s, they are still there, and we as legislators have to go, talk to them and justify what we do or we do not do.3 In light of these characteristics, Pribble classifies the Frente Amplio as a constituency-coordinating party (Pribble 2013). Other significant features of left-wing parties to consider when analyzing the possibility of alliances with movement activists is the secular or religious character of these parties, and the role that feminist politicians have played within party structures.The political parties within the Frente Amplio all share a secular character,

70 The Case of Uruguay

which eliminates any doctrinal obstacle to the establishment of an alliance with feminist activists. Although the Frente Amplio has had but few feminist figures among its legislators, they have been very strongly committed individuals.These women have worked within the party structure to educate their male peers and advocate for reproductive rights issues that are key to women’s autonomy. The inclusion of gender issues within the Frente Amplio’s platform was primarily due to the internal lobbying of feminist politicians (Johnson et al. 2019). Margarita Percovich and Mónica Xavier, key figures within the Frente Amplio, had been at the forefront of this process of abortion reform. The high level of institutionalization of the Frente Amplio and the channels that it provides to connect with the bases have diminished the influence of leaders in determining the party’s program.That development has been significant in the discussion of abortion given that, contrary to the overwhelming support for legal abortion within the bases, the twice-president Tabaré Vázquez held strong anti-abortion positions, which in another institutional context might have prevented the party from taking a strong – and very crucial – stance in support of abortion reform.

Executive Branch and Separation of Powers The Executive branch in Latin America is key to the formulation of government policies. Unlike several Latin American countries, the Uruguayan constitution and domestic laws do not grant any decree powers to the Executive. However, the presidency in Uruguay, while not as powerful as others in the region, cannot be considered weak. As in Argentina and Chile, Uruguay’s president has a strong veto power that requires congressional supermajorities in order to be overridden, a tool that gives the Executive the final say on bills approved by Congress. As with the case of the Chilean president, the Executive has the exclusive right to introduce certain legislation in Congress, such as that dealing with tax exemptions and minimum wages and prices; the Executive can also assign urgency to this legislation. Moreover, the office of the presidency has a particular power that is rare within Latin America:The president can dissolve both chambers of Congress, although only in response to a censure of one of the cabinet ministers (Mainwaring and Shugart 1997). This power has, however, not been used since the return of democracy in 1985. The personal position of the president on the issue of abortion has always been an important factor enabling or restricting the possibilities of reform. In the case of Uruguay, the different personal views on abortion rights between President Vázquez (2005–2010) (who opposed them) and President Mujica (2010–2015) (who supported them) proved critical in achieving abortion reform. Despite the fact that the Uruguayan president has strong constitutional powers, the separation between the Executive and Legislative branches in relation to agenda-setting remains strong in comparison with Argentina and Chile.

The Case of Uruguay

71

The Uruguayan Congress has been able to introduce issues in the congressional agenda and even vote in favor of them against the will of the president, all with no intervention from the Executive branch.The exception has been the instance in which the constitution allows the president to do so:The use of veto power.This was the case of the second reproductive health bill approved by both chambers of Congress but vetoed by President Vázquez in 2008.As we shall see, despite the fact that the presidential veto prevented the passing of the abortion reform, the president did not intervene to prevent the discussion of the bill in Congress, allowing the collaboration between the women’s movement and sympathetic legislators to flourish and lead to the approval of the bill by the legislature.Vazquez incurred some significant political costs as a result. His decision to oppose his party and his constituents’ position on abortion led to his resignation from the Socialist Party.

The Power of the Catholic Church With its high levels of secularism, Uruguay is considered a religious outlier within Latin America. According to World Values Survey data for 2005–2009, 34% of Uruguayans identified themselves as Catholics, but only 12% attended mass at least once a week, and 67% of them never did.4 These figures are quite low compared to the rest of the region.5 The Church itself has highlighted the secular character of Uruguayan society, defining it as a challenge:“Uruguay is an extreme case of the [Church’s] weakening in Latin America because it has been experiencing a process of radical secularization for a long time.”6 This statement by the Church is quite revealing since, historically, the presence of the Catholic Church in what is now Uruguay has been weaker than in other areas of the Spanish Empire (Luna 2006). The separation between Church and state began as early as 1861 with the secularization of cemeteries under President Bernardo Berro (1860–1864) and continued with President Batlle’s first reforms (1903–1907) in the early twentieth century (including the legalization of divorce), which were later introduced in the 1918 Constitution (Arteaga 2002).7 Unlike in some other Latin American countries, in Uruguay Catholicism is not the official religion. Religious instruction in public schools, moreover, has been banned since 1909. The Church receives no financial support from the state and tax exemptions are available for all religious groups, not just Catholics. This history of reforms has led to a clear separation between Church and state that does not exist in the other two country cases. Formally, the Catholic Church has much less power and influence in Uruguay than in neighboring countries. Informal relations between the Church and political and economic elites also remain weak. In contrast to Chile (Blofield 2006; Haas 2010), for example, none of Uruguay’s main multimedia firms have strong links with the Catholic Church or its most conservative organizations such as Opus Dei and Legionnaires of Christ. In terms of the business community as a whole, a 2007 elite public opinion poll

72 The Case of Uruguay

confirmed the lack of influence of the Church among businessmen on this issue, finding that 72% were in favor of abortion reform.8 Uruguay also lacks the conservative coalition among landowners, the military and the Church (Luna 2005) that characterized most Latin American countries well into the twentieth century. The only political party affiliated with the Catholic Church, Union Cívica, has never gained the support of most Catholics, who have for the most part remained loyal to the two dominant traditional parties, the Partido Blanco and the Partido Colorado (Arteaga 2002). A final indication of the weak reach of the Church among political elites is the small percentage of politicians who have attended Catholic universities. Uruguay has a strong public university tradition, and most politicians have chosen a secular education, stripping the Church of an important means to shape the values of political elites, an important factor in other Latin American countries such as Chile.

The Women’s Movement and the Fight for Abortion Reform in Uruguay The campaign for abortion reform took shape as part of a wider women’s movement that in Uruguay, as in the other Southern Cone countries, developed during the military dictatorship of the 1970s. This women’s movement had its earliest manifestation as a moment of strong mobilization at the beginning of the twentieth century around the issue of women’s suffrage.The re-emergence, evolution and characterization of the broader women’s movement in each of the countries is an important factor in understanding the strength of the campaign for abortion. While the contours and evolution of this movement were similar in the three countries during the 1970s, once democracy was back, the trajectories diverged and some women’s movements remained stronger than others. In the case of Uruguay, scholars have described the women’s movement as an active and strong actor in both the process of democratization and the struggle for gender equality and women’s rights ever since. What distinguishes this movement from that of the other two cases has been the clarity around the need for legal abortion from the early days of democratization, and the launching of a specific campaign to advance abortion reform that developed clear strategies to achieve this.

The Women’s Movement in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s During the 1970s, military dictatorships governed the Southern Cone countries, demobilizing civil society and brutally repressing dissent. Paradoxically, this repression birthed the critical second moment of women’s mobilization in the region. The harshness of the respective regimes during this period in effect led to a variety of politicizing experiences for women. Many women had to leave their countries due to their political activities and, as a result, became acquainted

The Case of Uruguay

73

and involved with feminist ideas and movements prevalent in the North. Once democracy returned in the 1980s, many came back to their home countries with fresh eyes and strong political commitment to gender equality. Others who stayed in Uruguay became active towards the end of the dictatorship in local initiatives to address housing, health and hunger issues in light of the economic crisis, or began participating in unions and professional associations once the military regime began to liberalize (Tornaria 1990). Organizations such as the Plenary of Women of Uruguay (PLEMU) became an active part of the opposition to the dictatorship (Prates and Rodríguez Villamil 1986). All these women gradually came to feminism through the practice of their own political activism:That is, the experience of daily empowerment resulting from the collectivization of their problems combined with the discrimination they faced for being women within their leftist but still patriarchal organizations. Carmen Beramendi, former Tupamara,9 political prisoner during the dictatorship, union activist and, after the democratic transition, legislator from the Frente Amplio (1990–1995) reflects on her political experience and her embracing of feminism: As in the rest of Latin America Uruguayan women have fought to bring the dictatorship down, but, in the country that usually claims to be the most egalitarian of the region, there was no women in Parliament until five years after the transition to democracy. It was at that moment that I became a feminist, almost without realizing it.10 Once the democratic transition took place, those in exile returned and joined those that had suffered the repression within Uruguay, to become part of the process of democratization. Some women continued to work within social movements and unions while others became active in party politics. There were also cases of double militancy in both feminist organizations and leftist political parties. All of these groups had increasing numbers committed to the legalization of abortion.11 The bonds and the common struggle against the dictatorship between women in popular organizations, unions and those in political parties ensured a fluid interaction between activists and legislators once the campaign for legal abortion was eventually launched close to two decades later.The personal trajectory of Margarita Percovich, one of the main legislators who led the fight for abortion reform in parliament, illustrates this experience. While I have always considered myself a politician, I am after all one of the founders of the Frente Amplio, I always worked and remained in touch with women from the movement. I was in fact part of the first women organization that emerged during the transition, PLEMU … since then we [women in the party and women in civil society] have always worked together, we have a joint strategy.12

74 The Case of Uruguay

The demand to legalize abortion appeared earlier in Uruguay than in the other two countries.This issue had been part of the women’s movement agenda since the 1985 democratic transition. On February 14 of that year, the Uruguayan Concertación Nacional de Mujeres (National Coordination of Women), a newly created organization comprised of women from all spheres of life (unions, professional associations, social movements, arts, political parties) issued a statement calling for abortion reform to be discussed during the process of democratization (Abracinskas and López Gómez 2007). On November 15 of that same year, around 100,000 women demonstrated in downtown Montevideo, showcasing their support for democracy and for the women’s agenda (Prates and Rodríguez Villamil 1986). While women’s organizations in other countries could not agree on the need to include the legalization on abortion by request until much later (Chilean women’s organizations struggled with this well into the twenty-first century), women in Uruguay formed a general consensus around this need from early on, which consolidated the movement and prevented internal divisions. In addition, Uruguay has had only one left-wing party with a strong party identity, the Frente Amplio (Yaffé 2013); women activists, who were mostly identified with the Left, thus had one political space – and that brought all of them together and discouraged divisions based on party lines very common in the other two countries. Prior to the launching of the campaign for legal abortion in 2001, some women organizations already had this issue on their agenda. The oldest one is Cotidiano Mujer, a feminist collective launched in 1985 that developed a clear discourse in favor of legalization.13 This group defined its mission as one intended to advance cultural change and new spaces for discussion and promotion of feminist ideas.A second organization also supported the legalization of abortion – the Uruguayan chapter of Catholics for Choice, created in 1988.The next year these and other organizations launched the Women’s Movement for the Legalization of Abortion, intended to push the issue into the electoral campaign. In 1992 these activists created a Feminist Space to encourage discussion and promote their ideas in the media (Johnson et al. 2015). In 1996, two new organizations emerged that became significant actors in the 2001 campaign for abortion reform. In the context of the UN conference for women’s rights that took place in Beijing in 1995, activists created the Comisión Nacional de Seguimiento por Democracia, Equidad y Ciudadanía (CNS, National Commission for Democracy, Equity and Citizenship). Its goal was to monitor the commitments taken by the Uruguayan state in the UN system. In addition, Mujer y Salud Uruguay (MYSU, Women and Health Uruguay) offered the first space for women’s activists to address and coordinate around women’s health issues. Finally, in 2001 the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women’s Rights (CLADEM) opened a branch in Uruguay and became an active part of the struggle for abortion reform. These organizations all came together in 2001 to launch the campaign for the legalization of abortion.

The Case of Uruguay

75

The 2001 Campaign to Legalize Abortion In 2001, an economic crisis that erupted in Argentina spread to Uruguay producing, among other consequences, an increase in maternal mortality due to abortion. In this context, on May 28, MYSU and CNS organized a panel discussion at the municipal building in Montevideo and launched a campaign to legalize abortion. In July women’s organizations created a new space to discuss strategies and courses of action called Iniciativa Ciudadana contra el Aborto Inseguro (Citizens’ Initiative against Unsafe Abortion), which evolved into the National Coordination Campaign in 2003. When evaluating the strength of the campaign around the different dimensions – number of organizations, support of key social actors, media presence, public opinion support and protests – the overall assessment is that this was a strong initiative. It involved a large number of women’s organizations, ensuring its presence across the country. Moreover, the campaign received the support of a large number of key social actors, had a large media presence and even created its own content. Public opinion rallied behind its demand.The only dimension in which the campaign’s performance was not the strongest in comparison with the other two countries is in the number and size of protests.While mobilization was one of the strategies developed by the campaign, it was not the main one – and this showed. The Uruguayan campaign never reached the massive mobilization seen in Argentina, for example. This difference had to do first with Argentina’s larger population (Uruguay has only a tenth of Argentina’s population), but secondly and most importantly with its choice of tactics.While a social movement’s distinguishing feature is disrupting social order through popular mobilization (Tarrow 1998), it is well known that this is not the only choice at a movement’s disposal. Social movements lobby, produce traditional and social media content and do grassroots organizing. In this case, the receptiveness activists found among legislators and the close collaboration they established with them early on reduced the need for frequent and large demonstrations, which had been more necessary in the other two countries where the movement had to put greater pressure on Congress to advance the issue.

Number of Organizations As the campaign managed to create a general consensus around the need to legalize abortion, an increasing number of women’s organizations came to support the cause. The ten most important women’s organizations became part of the campaign’s coordination entity: the Coordinación Nacional de Organizaciones por la Defensa de la Salud Reproductiva (National Coordination of Organizations for the Defense of Reproductive Health). The groups were: Casa de la Mujer de la Unión, Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir, CLADEM Uruguay, CNS Mujeres, Cotidiano Mujer, GRECMU (Grupo de Estudios sobre la Condición de la Mujer

76 The Case of Uruguay

en Uruguay), Mujer Ahora, MYSU, Red Genero y Familia, and REPEM (Red de Educación Popular entre Mujeres). Unlike the case of Chile, in which the women’s movement had been split around what was the best way to ensure access to reproductive rights and put an end to the total abortion ban, Uruguayan groups lacked strong internal divisions – all of which gave the campaign a strength that was quite visible from its start.

Support of Key Social Actors The campaign developed a clear strategy of building a broad coalition of social actors for abortion reform in order to increase the legitimacy of its demand (Wood et al. 2016).14 The goal was for abortion reform to stop being just a feminist demand and become a citizens’ demand (Johnson et al. 2015; Pousadella 2016). The campaign received the official support of the main public university (Universidad de la República), the Union of Doctors of Uruguay, the central workers’ union (PIT CNT), the LGBT movement and the Methodist andValdense Churches15 (Abracinskas and López Gómez 2004;Weller et al. 2007; Johnson et al. 2011). In some of these cases – unions, churches and the LGBT movement – the alliance went beyond a public statement of support and involved the incorporation of these actors into the campaign’s coordinating entity (Coordinadora). This development created some difficulties in the decision-making process in terms of the different priorities, visions and organizational structures of each of the actors,16 but in the long term it strengthened the social support for legalization, increasing the chances of success. The abortion campaign in Argentina has received the public support of some of these same actors (with the exception of medical associations); however, they were not integrated into the campaign as in Uruguay. Doctors’ support was critical in Uruguay, given the high levels of societal legitimacy enjoyed by the medical profession (Sanseviero 2007; Moreira 2007; Johnson et al. 2011) and the strategy of framing abortion reform as a public health issue. Uruguay’s tradition of a strong public health system with the consequent large role of the state in this arena explains the resonance of the public health frame and the central role that doctors had in the process (Correa and Pecheny 2016). Doctors had historically opposed abortion reform in other Catholic countries such as Italy, Spain and Portugal, so their support in this case improved the public’s perception of the bill (Abracinskas and López Gómez 2001). In 2001, doctors of the public hospital Pereira Rossell launched a group: Iniciativa Sanitaria contra el Aborto Provocado en Condiciones de Riesgo (Health Initiative against Unsafe Abortion) to lower the risk of unsafe abortions. Together with women’s groups such as MYSU and Ruda,17 they wrote a guide for hospitals and doctors on how to humanely treat women in pre- and post-abortion situations.18 In 2004 this guide was approved by the Ministry of Public Health and disseminated among the public health system.19 This same year the doctors’ union gave its formal support

The Case of Uruguay

77

to the campaign.This relationship was not free of conflicts. Feminists were raising a discourse of empowerment and autonomy while doctors wanted to maintain their control over women’s reproductive decisions (Johnson et al. 2015). However, they managed to set differences aside to create a common front for abortion reform to be passed. The support of workers’ unions was also important, and was shown by including (from 2003 on) the decriminalization of abortion on the list of demands the unions traditionally made on May 1, International Workers’ Day (Castillo 2007). The political relevance of unions is larger in Uruguay than in the neighboring countries. Unlike in Argentina and Brazil, Uruguay still has a unified central workers’ organization (PIT-CNT) and the power of unions has remained comparatively untouched given the more moderate neoliberal reforms implemented during the 1990s and the strengthening of collective bargaining that was begun by the governments of the Frente Amplio in 2004 (Cook and Bazler 2013). In addition, Uruguayan unions have been active on gender issues since the early 1980s (Espino 1990).The growing role of women within unions would be key to galvanize support among workers for abortion reform (Correa and Pecheny 2016). An elite public opinion poll conducted in 2007 showed that 97% of union leaders supported abortion decriminalization.20 Union leader Juan Castillo explained this overwhelming support for abortion reform: “When we understood that this was an important problem for part of the working class that are our women, I believe that it became easier.”21 Framing abortion as a social justice issue that affected primarily poor and vulnerable women and their families clearly resonated among working classes. By 2003 these social actors became part of the campaign in the Coordinación Nacional de Organizaciones por la Defensa de la Salud Reproductiva, the broadest coalition of diverse groups such as unions, professional organizations and religious denominations pushing for the decriminalization of abortion that had ever been mobilized (Sanseviero 2007).22 Because each organization had its own logic and internal decision-making process, their challenge was to reach a consensus. The campaign organizations thus agreed on four principles: 1) abortion is a public health problem and a lack of access to abortions is a social injustice; 2) respect for others’ values and religious beliefs; 3) the right of women to control their own bodies is a matter of citizenship and democracy; and 4) sexual and reproductive rights should be acknowledged as a human rights issue (Abracinskas and López Gómez 2004: 104).23

Media Presence With the goal of highlighting the topic of abortion in the societal agenda, activists designed a media campaign that guaranteed them a presence in newspapers, television and social media throughout the congressional debates. In the earlier days, they published open letters in main newspapers and launched blog campaigns.

78 The Case of Uruguay

In November 2002 the group wrote an open letter to Uruguayan citizens entitled Aborto! no más silencios públicos! (Abortion, no more public silence!), which received the support of more than 1,000 well-known figures from different sectors of society.24 In 2007, when the second bill on reproductive health stalled in Congress, women activists organized a campaign in solidarity with a woman who had been prosecuted for having an abortion.The effort was based on a blog called Yo aborté (I had an abortion) and was open for people to publicly admit they had undergone an abortion or supported somebody that had.25 The media gave the event broad coverage, ensuring the diffusion of the action beyond feminist circles. In just one month 9,000 people had left their testimonies on the blog.This action broke the abstract character of the legislative debates on abortion by relating the issue to specific personal experiences, and radicalized the debate in that these 9,000 people were openly admitting they violated the law, making this an act of civil disobedience (Sanseviero 2007).The success of this initiative was significant in light of earlier failed attempts in neighboring Chile and Argentina. In the mid-1990s Chilean and Argentinean feminists had launched a similar campaign but only five women signed on in the case of the former and 100 in the latter (Blofield 2006).The fact that the Uruguayan blog was done in the midst of a comprehensive campaign for abortion reform – instead of as an isolated action – and that it was widely covered by the media might explain the widespread success. The blog’s success was key to re-launching the debate in Congress in 2007 (Sanseviero 2007).Among the 9,000 people who signed the statement were eight of President Vázquez’s government ministers, signaling dissension within the administration, given Tabaré Vázquez’s known opposition.26 On June 29, a document with 6,000 signatures was presented to Vice President Nin Novoa who sent the signatures to Congress with a call to reopen the debate.27 The following week the Senate Health Committee included the bill in the agenda (Sanseviero 2007). In order to gain visibility, the campaign designed an icon, an orange hand that said “I vote in favor of reproductive health.” In every demonstration each person carried a cardboard orange hand. In a very short time the orange hand was present in activities related not only to reproductive health in particular but also to human rights and sexual diversity.The orange hand gave the campaign a broader visibility and linked abortion reform to other human rights issues, evidence of the close alliance with other social movements and actors.28 To increase its national outreach in 2007 the campaign launched a media plan with three television ads highlighting the fact that 63% of the population supported the bill and calling on Congress to respect this majority (Selios 2007). Their advocacy had real implications. Some public opinion studies have shown that although a majority may support abortion decriminalization, this majority usually assumes they are a minority.Thus, they decide not to be outspoken about it, creating a spiral of silence.29 The campaign’s diffusion of the evidence of strong public support for the bill was an effort to eliminate this misperception.

The Case of Uruguay

79

During the height of the campaign, women activists became increasingly prominent and were often called for interviews on television shows. The campaign handled this very effectively, sending specialized speakers on the different aspects of the issue (legal, medical and social) depending on who the opponent was to ensure a strong defense of its arguments and positions.30 Finally, with the increased use of social media by Uruguayan society, in September 2009 the movement opened a Facebook account. In 2010, when the last bill was introduced, it had 6,300 members; by March 2014 membership had reached 22,334.31

Public Opinion Support The demand for the decriminalization of abortion had large public appeal, and it grew after the launching of the movement’s campaign. In addition to their media strategy, activists set up a grassroots campaign to spread the word about the need for abortion reform. They traveled around the country to inform people face-to-face about the abortion situation in Uruguay and what the bill would do to improve women’s health and rights. They accepted speaking invitations from every town or group, no matter how small.32 They visited neighborhood assemblies, unions and academic meetings (Abracinskas and López Gómez 2007).These two strategies were critical in disseminating information about the bill throughout the country (Moreira 2007).This approach also allowed them to counter the reach of the Catholic Church, which promoted its anti-abortion discourse in sermons, Catholic schools and universities. Overall the campaign was quite successful in its goal of raising awareness and changing public opinion on the issue of abortion. The support for the right of women to decide to have an abortion during the first trimester with no interference increased from 22% in 1994 to 40 or 54% (depending on the survey) in 2004 (Johnson et al. 2011; Selios 2007). Surveys showed, moreover, that the more the public knew about the bill, the more they favored the legalization of abortion, a relationship that encouraged the movement to continue its commitment to spread accurate information about the issue at stake. Education mattered.

Street Protests Demonstrations and street actions and performances were some of the ways the campaign increased visibility, raised awareness and pressured legislators when the bill was under debate in Congress. Although most newspaper accounts do not specify the number of people who took part in the demonstrations, activist accounts reflect that their largest protests brought together hundreds of people. Most street actions were thus not massive demonstrations as in the case of Argentina, but performances and interventions that followed the congressional debate and the key dates associated with this issue: International Women’s Day on March 8, International Day of Action for Women’s Health on May 28, and

80 The Case of Uruguay

Number of protests (2000–13)

6 5

Number

4 3 2 1 0

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Year

FIGURE 2.1

Number of Street Protests for Abortion Reform in Uruguay (2000–2013).

Source: By author based on OSAL chronologies, MYSU documents and newspaper La Diaria.

the International Day of the Struggle for the Decriminalization of Abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean on September 28. The campaign showed creativity in how it conveyed its messages in street protests. Two protests stand out and involved performances of naked women with their bodies painted orange and with images of famous Uruguayan artist Torres Martin. The message behind these performances was that while men lay down the conditions and regulations on women’s lives, it is women who put their actual bodies on the line. In addition, and in line with the campaign’s goal of creating alliances with other social actors, activists participated in other larger protests and events such as those of May Day organized by unions, and even had a presence during the carnival celebrations through the activist murga (street band) La Mojigata (Pousadella 2016). Figure 2.1 shows the evolution of the number of protests organized by the campaign, demonstrating that the height of them happened during the congressional debate around the bill that ended up being approved in 2012. This correlates with the moment in which the campaign comparatively lacked more access to legislators since the negotiations to get the final votes for the approval of the law implied making some concessions the movement disapproved of, creating a split in the previous alliance.

Building Alliances with Congress The interaction between the campaign for abortion reform and sympathetic legislators proved crucial in the struggle to achieve policy change. The close

The Case of Uruguay

81

collaboration between these two actors was an explicit strategy of a strong campaign, one made possible by the institutional arrangements of the Uruguayan political system described in the previous sections. What differentiates the Uruguayan campaign from the other two cases has been the willingness and capacity to build close alliances with sympathetic legislators in power.The campaign for abortion reform had a clear strategy to develop and maintain regular contact with legislators supporting the bill. Collaborating with politicians in office typically generates deep divisions within women’s movements across Latin America. Women activists who self-identify as autónomas (autonomous) have repeatedly rejected these strategies given that they entailed a high risk of being co-opted by governments (Jaquette 2009; Craske 1999; Haas 2010). Autonomismo has been weaker in Uruguay when compared with Argentina and Chile. In the case of Argentina, the lack of a strong left-wing party coupled with political parties’ lack of legitimacy and the perception of high levels of corruption and inefficiency undermined efforts at collaboration. In Chile, the fact that the Center-Left coalition Concertación had been in power since the beginning of the democratic transition for four consecutive administrations only brought criticism among activists against those women from the social movement working with the government; given the lack of commitment from these administrations to multiple feminist issues such as that of reproductive rights, activists understandably considered women working with the government to have been co-opted. However, Uruguayan women could operate without such baggage. Most of the feminists had a political allegiance to the leftist Frente Amplio and had close relationships with many women active in the party.As has already been mentioned, these alliances originated in their common struggles for democratization towards the end of the dictatorship. But more recent initiatives also helped pave the way to the collaboration on abortion reform. Some positive experiences of collaborations had been in place since the Frente Amplio won the governorship of the city of Montevideo in 1990. At that time activists worked in close collaboration with the Comisión de la Mujer (Women’s Commission) and the Programa de Atención Integral a la Mujer (Program for Women’s Integral Care) (Johnson et al. 2015; Correa and Pecheny 2016). Thus, to work closely with government officials was not a completely new experience for activists – and certainly not one that called into question their commitment to change. The close relationships between feminist activists and leftist government officials was also encouraged by the fact that Uruguay is a very small country (fewer than 4 million people) where people know each other and networks are more easily maintained and nurtured than in larger and more complex societies. This sentiment was repeated time and again by activists being interviewed.33 There was also a precedent of a close relationship between women activists and sympathetic legislators on the issue of abortion at the national level – and this really mattered. In 1993, as a result of a collaboration with feminist Graciela Duffau,

82 The Case of Uruguay

director of CLADEM Uruguay, Rafael Sanseviero, legislator for the Frente Amplio, introduced a bill in Congress to legalize abortion by request.34 While the mobilization for abortion reform was still in its infancy and the input the movement offered on the bill was limited to the interaction of a few individuals, this early collaboration set a precedent for future actions. Once women organizations launched the campaign in 2001, the collaboration between them and legislators to pass abortion reform not only gained momentum but did so in many different forms. Apart from regular meetings, these activities included writing technical documents on abortion that legislators could use when debating the bill35 (Abracinskas and López Gómez 2007: 201), talking to all political parties and legislators to map the vote (that is, to understand the voting inclinations of various individuals and factions and strategize accordingly)36 and organizing demonstrations when the legislators expressed the need for social support to back their bills and put pressure on the undecided legislators.37 Activist Alejandra López Gómez recalls the days of working side-by-side with legislators: we were working in Congress all day and all night … there were eight or nine of us … we basically set our secretariat in the offices of the block of the Frente Amplio and that became our operational base at the time.38 In the interviews I conducted with Uruguayan legislators, most confirmed the existence of this close relationship with the campaign, noting that the interaction had covered all stages of the process.39 A positive assessment of this collaboration predominated among legislators that worked with the campaign. In 2008, during the congressional discussion of the second reproductive health bill, Senator Margarita Percovich from the Frente Amplio, one of the main advocates of decriminalization, credited the women’s movement with the bill’s advancement: The work done by the movement was fantastic, they went office by office. If it wasn’t for them, the law would not have been approved [in the Lower Chamber]. The work they did with the legislators from the Frente Amplio and the Partido Colorado was spectacular.40 The clarity in the need for the legalization of abortion within the movement and their willingness to work with allies in power was matched by a clear commitment to abortion reform from many actors within the political system. Ever since democratization, there has been a bill in Congress demanding the legalization of abortion. Although clearly not a priority at the time, the first bill to legalize abortion by request was discussed in Congress as early as 1993. In contrast this only happened in Argentina in 2018 and it has not yet happened in Chile. In addition, two political parties included the legalization of abortion by request as

The Case of Uruguay

83

part of their platforms. In Argentina, support for such reform had only happened among some small leftist parties; in Chile only the Communist Party had included such a position in the platform. In Uruguay, the issue of abortion was present in the Partido Colorado’s platform from 1983 until 1985, when the Batllista branch of the party opposed its inclusion and the party decided to eliminate it. In 1989 the leftist Frente Amplio included legal abortion in its platform and one of its legislators, Rafael Sanseviero from the Communist Party, campaigned on this issue when he ran for Congress. Johnson et al. (2015) offer an account of the positions legislators had on abortion reform as early as 1991. Within the Frente Amplio 17 out of 20 legislators in the Lower Chamber were already in favor of legalization – a majority that resulted from the high-profile role of feminist politicians within the Frente Amplio. These women worked hard on abortion and were key in making the inclusion of this issue possible. Despite being a progressive party, the Frente Amplio has been mostly dominated by a male leadership and the oldest generations maintained the classic leftist subordination of all issues to class ( Johnston et al. 2019). Since women were still a small minority within Congress, feminists needed to convince their male colleagues to be able to advance their gender agenda. Senator Percovich explains the work feminist legislators did from the early 1980s: We, the women of the Frente [Amplio], have worked intensely with our own political male leaders to integrate a gender perspective to all our policies and we have managed to make them understand that we cannot think about real social change if we do not pay attention to gender … we did this when we were in the city government in Montevideo and now that we are in the national government.41 Silvia Rodriguez Villamil, feminist historian and member of the Communist Party within the Frente Amplio, has also been part of this political and ideological struggle to bring feminism to the traditional leftist parties. Reflecting on this task she states, “at least at the theoretical level it is impossible to be a communist and not be a feminist.”42 Today the Frente Amplio has seen the increasing influence of feminism within the party, particularly one led by younger generations of women who have followed the legacy of pioneer women politicians such as Margarita Percovich, Mónica Xavier and Carmen Beramendi. In 2018 a group of young activists created La Comité, a feminist commission within the party that offers a space to discuss a feminist perspective of all the issues that have historically been relevant to the Left.43 In 2014, feminist senator Constanza Moreira became the first woman to compete for the presidential nomination. She included feminist and LGBTQ issues in her platform and received 18% of the votes, despite having significantly smaller financial resources (Johnson et al. 2019). The rise of feminist politicians

84 The Case of Uruguay

and spaces within the party will increase even more the channels of collaboration with women’s movements in the future.

Phases of Collaboration Between the Movement and Allies in Power While there was a clear collaboration between the campaign and legislators throughout the discussion of the three reproductive health bills (2002, 2006, 2010), the relationships between them fluctuated throughout this time and took a different character depending on the specific political circumstances.This section examines each of the three phases, as delineated by the discussion of the three bills for abortion reform that reached the plenary session in Congress. Interestingly, the evolution of the relationship between activists and supportive legislators was not linear. The party in power, the balance of political forces in Congress and the position on abortion of the Executive played a role in the ups and downs of this collaboration. The relationship between the movement and sympathetic allies in power grew gradually, starting with the 2002 bill, reaching a peak with the 2006 bill (which was vetoed by President Vázquez), before diminishing during the 2010 bill, the one that would finally be approved into law. Even if collaboration diminished in the final phase, it was still crucial to arrive at the final approval.

The 2002 Bill Jorge Batlle from the Colorado Party was president in 2002, when the first of the three reproductive health bills was introduced in Congress.The Frente Amplio had not yet won a presidential election. While historically within the Colorado Party there were different positions around abortion, Batlle opposed it and threatened to veto the bill if approved by Congress. During the second round of the 1999 presidential elections, then-Colorado presidential candidate Batlle had made a political agreement with a small religious party, Unión Cívica, to reject abortion reform in exchange for receiving their electoral support. Given the comparatively stronger division of power between the Executive and Legislative branches in Uruguay, Colorado legislators were free to individually decide their vote around abortion. But many of the legislators felt the need to reject the bill so as to avoid placing their president in the potentially exposed position of using the veto powers. The 2002 reproductive health bill was the first one sponsored by the campaign. The bill was drafted by legislators from the Frente Amplio and the Partido Colorado based on the previous bills that had been introduced to Congress during the years following the return of democracy in 1985.The collaboration between these two parties on this issue rested on the creation of the Female Caucus (Bancada Femenina) in the year 2000. The fact that three women legislators – Margarita Percovich from the Frente Amplio, Glenda Rondán from the Partido Colorado

The Case of Uruguay

85

and Beatriz Argimón from the Partido Blanco, who had worked together on gender issues from the time of the democratic transition and more recently as local legislators in Montevideo – had been elected as legislators to the Lower Chamber created the conditions to launch the Caucus with the goal of working together across party lines on a gender agenda.44 While this was a very successful initiative on other less controversial issues, the fact that the “right to life from conception” was part of the platform of the Partido Blanco and that Beatriz Argimón shared her party’s position opposing abortion on request made Percovich and Rondán the main interlocutors with the women’s movement.The independence of the Legislative and Executive branches, however, allowed legislator Rondán to challenge the anti-abortion position of President Batlle, a member of her same party.The same scenario, this time involving the Frente Amplio legislators against President Vázquez, would repeat in the following administration. In the following congressional periods (2005 onwards) the Female Caucus was formed by Frente Amplio legislators so the presence of multi-party allies was mostly lacking. In 2010 Glenda Rondán led a group of Colorado politicians that quit their party and became part of the Frente Amplio given their identification with this party’s values and ideas, among them the support for abortion reform. While, the bill on sexual and reproductive health introduced in 2002 was not drafted by the movement, the fact that one of the bills that contributed to the final formulation was the one introduced by Frente Amplio legislator Sanseviero in 1993, which had received input from feminist activists, meant that feminists were satisfied with the language and regulations proposed in it (Johnson et al. 2015).The bill argued that the state was the main entity responsible for ensuring the respect of sexual and reproductive rights and proposed sexual education and contraception programs to diminish maternal mortality and morbidity. It included abortion by request until the twelfth week of pregnancy. After the first trimester abortion would be made legal in cases of risk to the woman’s life and health and fetal malformations incompatible with life outside the womb. The importance of collaboration between activists and legislators can be seen in a comparison between the 1993 attempts at reform and those same attempts one decade later.When the 1993 bill was discussed in congressional committees, the activists were not actively involved in the legislative debate given the absence of a strong campaign to advance abortion reform. Only one feminist organization, Espacio Feminista, presented its views on the bill to the Bioethics Committee after requesting a visit (Johnson et al. 2015).This time, however, the campaign had been launched in 2001 and was ready to have a stronger role in the congressional discussions. In 2002 a working group was created to pressure legislators to approve the bill.The establishment of a strong collaboration was part of an explicit strategy designed by the campaign. And this time activists found a receptive interlocutor in the Frente Amplio legislators. Unlike in 1993, in 2003 numerous women’s organizations (among them MYSU, CLADEM Uruguay and CNS) were invited by legislators sponsoring the bill to give their testimony in the congressional

86 The Case of Uruguay

committees. Evidence of this joint work could also be seen in the minutes of parliamentary sessions in which legislators sponsoring the bills would use documents and material drafted by organizations such as MYSU, key within the campaign.45 Representative Percovich reflected on the collaboration with movement activists, stating that: while there were some tensions, those never affected the common agenda, when I need them to come and make noise in parliament I call them, please I need a demonstration, or go to the office of this legislator to put pressure.46 The bill passed in the Lower Chamber by a margin of 47 votes to 43. However, in May 2004 it was defeated in the Senate with 17 votes against and 13 in favor. Almost all Frente Amplio senators supported the bill. However, all Colorado senators voted against it given the veto threat announced by President Batlle. They preferred to align with the president’s position on abortion to avoid forcing him to use the veto. The Blanco Party took an institutional position against the bill leaving no freedom to decide to its legislators and thus rejected the bill in block.

The 2006 Bill In light of the progress in 2004, that is, having for the first time a bill decriminalizing abortion passed in the Lower Chamber, activists were ready for a second try to overcome the failure in the Senate. A new bill was introduced in Congress in 2006 and supporters took up the campaign once again, but this time with more experience and learned lessons derived from the previous legislative cycle. The interaction between activists and legislators in Congress reached its height during the debate on the 2006 bill.The Frente Amplio had won the presidential elections in 2004 for the first time in its history under the candidacy of Tabaré Vázquez. Spirits within the movement were up; activists and supporters thought that with the Frente Amplio in power and a majority in Congress, the time had arrived to legalize abortion. Many of Frente Amplio’s legislators had promised women activists that once they came to power the first law to be introduced and passed was going to be that of sexual and reproductive rights.47 However, these early high expectations quickly met a new obstacle. In February 2005, a month before taking power, President-elect Vázquez announced that he would use his veto powers if the abortion bill was passed by Congress. This public statement was accompanied by the exclusion of the bill on sexual and reproductive rights from the legislative agenda of the new government (Sanseviero 2007). His personal opposition to the decriminalization of abortion was so strong that his vice president Nin Novoa publicly stated that “Vázquez is willing to resort to all constitutional means to prevent the bill from passing.” Nin Novoa even stated that if the bill were to be passed by Congress and his veto overridden, the president

The Case of Uruguay

87

could dissolve both Chambers.48 Tabaré Vázquez later denied he would take such an extreme measure.49 Women activists were in shock.The president had made his personal opposition to abortion known to the public before the electoral campaign, a position attributed to his conservative family values, and the influence of his deeply religious wife and his son, who is a Catholic priest. However, his decision to act on his personal position and veto the bill if approved by Congress was a surprise both for those within his party and the women’s movement.The veto threat created a strong controversy within the Frente Amplio.The president had made a political decision that ran against the program of his party based on his personal position on the issue of abortion.After Vázquez’s public statements around abortion, those Frente Amplio legislators who favored the bill met with him to discuss this tension and it was agreed that the bill would be introduced but not until 2006.The rationale for this decision was to avoid internal tensions during the first year of the leftist government.50 In 2006 feminist legislators Percovich and Xavier, who had close relationships with the feminist movement, drafted the new reproductive health bill based on the previous one that had been rejected in Congress and a new attempt to legalize abortion began. An equally intense conflict developed within the women’s movement regarding how much pressure to exert on legislators. Initially, women’s organizations agreed to reduce the pressure on gender issues during Vasquez’s first year in power.51 The coming to power of a left-wing administration for the first time in the history of Uruguay created fresh hope for social movement activists in all fields. Many of their members were appointed to government offices, and those who remained in the movement were still unsure on how to interact with a government they had voted for and wanted to see succeed.52 The paralysis of mobilization was an almost natural consequence of the need to adapt to a new order of things. Mobilization decreased during 2005, but by 2006 the campaign found its footing and gained new strength. Once the initial grace period passed, women’s organizations were ready to advocate for reform despite the president’s opposition. On March 8, 2006, not coincidentally International Women’s Day, women organizations re-launched the campaign in favor of the sexual and reproductive health bill.The campaign met in front of the president’s residency in Montevideo and from there marched down the Avenue 18 de Julio demanding the discussion and approval of the bill. This same day, President Vázquez had planned an event to launch the First National Plan for Equal Rights and Opportunities. Women present at the event recounted to me that nobody clapped when he entered the Government Palace. Everybody limited themselves to waving the “orange hand” with the slogan “I vote in favor of reproductive health,” forcing President Vázquez to change his speech and address the issue of abortion.53 Within this new political development of tensions between the Executive and Legislative branches around the issue of abortion, collaboration between activists and legislators committed to defy Vázquez’s threat increased. This was the time

88 The Case of Uruguay

when the campaign set its secretariat in the offices of the block of the Frente Amplio. When on June 2006 the Senate’s Health Committee did not include the bill in the agenda despite the persistent demands of legislators Percovich and Xavier, the movement came in to put pressure to advance on the discussion of the bill. After months of congressional delays, the campaign organized the blog “I had an abortion,” which received the support of more than 9,000 people.The signatures were presented to the vice president, who was forced to ask Parliament to include the bill in the agenda (Sanseviero 2007). As revealed by this incident, the collaboration between the movement and legislators was strong and transparent – and equally filled with tension. Female legislators thought those in the movement did not appreciate that their room for maneuver was smaller than for those in civil society and that each of their decisions carried a political cost those in the movement did not have to risk.54 But the collaboration, for all of its costs, was above all decidedly effective in that it pushed the issue – and the administration – to a tipping point. On November 6, 2007, and due to the intense work done by both activists and Frente Amplio legislators, the Senate approved the bill by a margin of 18 to 13.This was followed by its approval by a margin of only one vote (49 to 48) in the Lower Chamber on November 6, 2008.The Frente Amplio petitioned President Vázquez to refrain from vetoing the bill. However, ignoring the requests from his party, on November 13, Vázquez vetoed the chapter that contained the provisions to decriminalize abortion. He cited philosophical and biological reasons to justify his personal opposition to abortion, which went against his party’s position on the issue (Banfi Vique et al. 2010).55 Health Minister María Julia Muñoz jointly signed the document.56 The next day, after his party rejected his decision to veto abortion reform,Vázquez resigned from the Socialist Party. Immediately the women’s movement organized a demonstration to reject the veto under the slogan “Defend freedom, defend democracy.”57 The CNS released a press release stating that “Your will does not represent the will of the country” and described the veto as an “authoritarian act.”58 The veto of Tabaré Vázquez was a slap in the face to the movement and the close relationship it had with his party. While the threat of the veto was present during the discussion of the 2004 bill, the fact that he followed through after the bill was sponsored and approved by an overwhelming majority of his own legislators still surprised many. A feminist activist and member of the Frente Amplio reflects on this: It was a very hard moment … some people within the social movement thought this was going to be easier, and I believe this was the case because some of them are more “frenteamplistas” than those that are inside the party, they think that the Frente Amplio will act this or that way as a monolithic body and they don’t realize that the party is also an arena of power where there are interests at stake, different personalities and people, etc. (Johnson et al. 2015: 78)

The Case of Uruguay

89

This experience sheds light into the complexities of a close collaboration between activists and allies in power and the difficulties of double militancy, even in closeto-ideal circumstances such as those present in Uruguay. President Vázquez’s personal position on abortion and his veto to the bill on sexual and reproductive health prevented the movement from passing abortion reform in 2008. His opposition made getting enough votes for approving the bill much harder. During the debates in Congress some Frente Amplio legislators who were personally in favor of abortion reform decided to vote against it so as not to force Vázquez to veto the bill. In this scenario,Vázquez’s position prevented activists from establishing an alliance with the Executive and limited their options to pursue collaboration with legislators in Congress. Uruguay’s strong separation of powers allowed Frente Amplio’s legislators to sponsor and advocate for the bill despite the Executive’s opposition, something that did not happen in similar situations in Chile or Argentina. In those countries the Executive held stronger powers in deciding the Legislative agenda, be it by formal channels such as in Chile, or more informal ones such as in Argentina.

The 2010 Bill It took the coming to power of Frente Amplio’s president Jose Mujica for abortion reform to finally win approval.The political scenario for abortion reform was overwhelmingly positive: President José Mujica was from the Frente Amplio and stated he would not veto the law, the party had majority in both chambers and the Health Ministry was supportive and was committed to push for a prompt and positive regulation of the reproductive health bill. Ironically this “ideal situation” reinforced the paralysis of the movement. Frustrated and exhausted due to president Vázquez’s veto, activists felt they had already done their part and it was time for politicians to push this through.They had placed the issue in the agenda, built a broad coalition of social actors behind it and established a close collaboration with legislators in Congress. Abortion was already present in the streets and in the media and legalization had already passed in Congress: It was their turn now (Johnson et al. 2015). In 2011 the Frente Amplio introduced a new bill in the Senate based on the previous one with some slight modifications. However, the situation would reveal to be far from ideal one more time. Before being elected president, Mujica stated numerous times that if Congress would pass a law decriminalizing abortion he would respect the decision and not use his veto power, giving legislators the green light to vote. While this implied an improved situation from that created by former president Vázquez, Mujica did not exactly embrace the reform. His preference was for the Uruguayan people to decide directly on this issue through a popular referendum.59 Lacking pressure from the Executive to support abortion reform and follow the party line on this issue, four Frente Amplio legislators decided to vote against it. As a result, the Frente Amplio

90 The Case of Uruguay

needed votes from outside the party to pass the reform, forcing them to negotiate with outside legislators to do so. These negotiations watered down the original bill, diminished the influence of the movement and resulted in a much more moderate reform than expected. In this new context, the debate for the 2011 bill saw the collaboration between the movement and sympathetic legislators wane.The political negotiations to gain the needed votes to pass the law left the movement in a secondary place and reduced the process to a political game (Correa and Pecheny 2016).The movement demanded a bill that stated abortion as a women’s right and gave women autonomy over their own decisions. The Frente Amplio legislators, while in agreement with activists in what the bill should look like, were immersed in the political negotiations and felt that a limited bill would be better than no bill at all. These two positions divided the movement between the maximalists and those willing to accept what was possible. Those with double militancy – active both within the feminist movement and the Frente Amplio – were more understanding of the constraints legislators were facing and supported the more moderate bill ( Johnson et al. 2015). Others were not so understanding. The divisions between activists and legislators was accompanied by a larger presence of the campaign in the streets to defend the original bill and limit congressional concessions. In March of 2012 the movement launched its Amaneceres naranjas (orange sunrises), an urban intervention that involved wrapping of key places in the city of Montevideo with the color orange, which, by this time, was clearly associated with the fight for abortion reform. In a similar vein, in September of that same year, the campaign organized a demonstration in front of the Congress building led by 15 women with their bodies painted in orange. In the end, the erosion of the collaboration between the movement and sympathetic legislators during the congressional debate distinctly limited abortion rights available to Uruguay women. The 2012 abortion reform was not one that embraced feminist arguments and demands. The new law allows women to have an abortion during the first trimester, but imposes requirements that limit women’s autonomy. Women must justify their decision to a medical doctor, who in turn must assemble a panel of three professionals (a gynecologist, a psychologist and a social worker) who are responsible for advising women on the law, the risks associated with the procedure and alternatives such as adoption.Women must then wait a minimum of five days before they can proceed, in order to “reflect” on their decision. In the case of rape, abortion will be allowed until week 14. In cases of risk to the mother’s health or fetal malformations incompatible with life outside the womb, there will be no time restrictions.All medical institutions are required to offer these services for free in public hospitals. Religious institutions and doctors with conscience objections must ensure that their patients will have an alternative place to carry out the requested abortion.

The Case of Uruguay

91

The campaign’s core criticism of the new law was that it did not actually decriminalize or legalize abortion: The practice is still defined as a crime given that the 1938 Criminal Code has not been reformed, leaving the stigma associated with this practice unchanged.60 In addition, the campaign also questioned the need to justify its choice to a “tribunal” and the fact that self-administered medical abortions using Misoprostol will still be considered illegal even when performed during the first trimester. In its view, these measures reinforce the view that women are incapable of making autonomous decisions over their bodies.

Conclusion Of the three cases examined in this book, Uruguay is the one that advanced abortion reform the most, granting women the right to an abortion for free in public hospitals until the twelfth week of pregnancy.The Uruguayan case shows how a strong campaign with a clear goal and strategy was able to take advantage of a favorable political and institutional context and establish a close collaboration with left-wing legislators to advance its demand for abortion reform. Given the opposition of both presidents Batlle and Vazquez and the lack of active commitment to abortion reform from President Mujica, the movement found that working with allies in Congress was the most promising strategy towards the legalization of abortion.The history of close links between women activists and women within the Frente Amplio, coupled with Uruguay’s unique institutional features and a weak Catholic Church, made the development of this collaboration possible. There was thus both a willingness from the part of the movement to reach out and work jointly with allies in power, and an institutional context that made this strategy feasible. The case of Uruguay sheds light onto the complexities of establishing alliances between activists and sympathetic legislators. Even in close-to-ideal circumstances in which the links between these two groups have been forged for decades and were facilitated by the unique characteristics of the Frente Amplio and its strong roots in civil society as well as the strong consensus around the need and rationale of abortion reform among both groups, tensions and conflicts were not absent. The political system and civil society are two realms with different rules and dynamics and as such encourage or discourage different behaviors based, for example, on the electoral calendar or the preferences expressed by the Executive and party leader. Identifying the specific moments in which activists or legislators had a larger or smaller influence on the process of reform allows us to understand the limitations of the 2012 bill that resulted from this process. During the discussion of the 2012 bill the campaign was pushed aside and the political logic of congressional negotiations tied to the urgency of passing the reform before the upcoming presidential elections took center stage.A more moderate reform than that embraced initially by the movement and the sympathetic legislators was the result of these negotiations.

92 The Case of Uruguay

Notes 1. This chapter is derived in part from the article “Decriminalizing abortion in Uruguay: Women’s movements, secularism and political allies” published in the Journal of Women, Politics and Policy in 2016 available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1554 477X.2016.1219583 2. Interview by the author. 3. Interview with Frente Amplio legislator, Montevideo, Uruguay, September 7, 2007. 4. I use the fourth wave (2005–2009) of the World Values Survey since it is the one that was conducted while the Pink Tide was in place in these three countries. 5. Close to 36% of Catholics attend mass at least once a week in Brazil and 62% in Mexico. 6. Guzman Carriquiry, Secretario de la Comisión Pontificia para América Latina. In El País, “Uruguay se ha ido secularizando.” March 31, 2012. www.elpais.com.uy. 7. The other countries in the region passed legal divorce much later: Brazil in 1977, Argentina in 1986 and Chile in 2004. 8. Encuesta de Elites conducted in 2007 by ICP, FCS, Universidad de la República. www. mysu.org.uy/IMG/pdf/hoja-informativa-2.pdf. 9. The Tupamaros were a left-wing urban guerrilla group in Uruguay during the 1960s and 1970s. 10. See El País,“Si las mujeres no nos unimos, perderemos la lucha por la igualdad. Entrevista a Carmen Beramendi.” March 6, 2017. https://elpais.com/elpais/2017/03/06/ contrapuntos/1488767117_213146.html. 11. Interview with Niki Johnson, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay, September 6, 2007. 12. Interview with Margarita Percovich, Montevideo, Uruguay, September 7, 2007. 13. More information at their website at www.cotidianomujer.org.uy/sitio/. 14. The feminist organizations were joined by Asociación Latinoamericana de Medicina Social, Cátedra Libre de Salud Reproductiva de la Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de la República, Comisión de Género del PIT-CNT, Consejo de Estudios y Difusion de las culturas y Religiones Africanas y Amerindias, Grupo de Bioética de la Iglesia Valdense, Juventud de la Vertiente Artiguista, Juventud Socialista, Iglesia Evangélica Metodista el Uruguay, Red de Jóvenes. In 2007 two new organizations joined the campaign:Amnesty International of Uruguay and the youth organization Pro Derechos. Interview with Niki Johnson, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay, September 6, 2007. 15. The Valdense Church is a Christian denomination that originated in Europe in the twelfth century that migrated to Uruguay in 1856. 16. Interview with Alejandra López Gómez, MYSU, Montevideo, September 6, 2007. 17. Ruda is another NGO involved in advancing abortion legalization. Interview with Rafael Sanseviero, member of Ruda and former legislator for the Frente Amplio. Montevideo, October 19, 2007. 18. Interview with Alejandra López Gómez, MYSU, Montevideo, Uruguay, September 5, 2007. 19. Ministry of Public Health, Ordenanza No 369/2004. 20. Encuesta de Elites conducted in 2007 by ICP, FCS, Universidad de la República. www. mysu.org.uy/IMG/pdf/hoja-informativa-2.pdf. 21. Quoted in Correa and Pecheny (2016: 42). 22. Interview with Niki Johnson, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay, September 6, 2007. Later two new organizations joined: Amnesty International and youth organization Pro Derechos. 23. Interview with Alejandra López Gómez, MYSU, September 5, 2007. 24. See “Carta Abierta a la Opinión Pública.Aborto: No mas Silencios Públicos!”Archives MYSU, Montevideo. 25. The blog was launched by members of the campaign but they identified themselves as “citizens.” See www.despenalizar.blogspot.com.

The Case of Uruguay

93

26. These were Minister of Social Development Marina Arismendi, Interior Minister Daisy Tourné, Housing Minister Mariano Arana, and Minister for Foreign Affairs Reinaldo Gargano. Four vice ministers also signed. 27. See La República,“Entregan hoy 6,000 firmas en solidaridad con procesada por abortar.” www.larepublica.com.uy. 28. Interview with Niki Johnson, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay, September 6, 2007. 29. See Página 12,“Lo que se piensa pero no se dice en voz alta.” November 5, 2012. 30. Interview with CNS activist, Montevideo, September 4, 2007. 31. See MYSU webpage at www.mysu.org.uy. 32. Interview with CNS activist, Montevideo, September 4, 2007. Interview with Alejandra López Gómez, MYSU, September 5, 2007. 33. Interviews with Alejandra López Gómez, MYSU, September 5, 2007, and Niki Johnson, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay, September 6, 2007. 34. Interview with Rafael Sanseviero, Montevideo, October 19, 2007. 35. Senate’s session of April 13, 2004 in which Senator Monica Xavier quotes documents from MYSU. www.parlamento.gub.uy. 36. Interview with women’s movement activist, Montevideo, September 6, 2007. Interview with CNS activist, Montevideo, September 4, 2007. 37. Interview with Senator Margarita Percovich, Montevideo, Uruguay, September 7, 2007. 38. Interview with Alejandra López Gómez, MYSU, Montevideo, Uruguay, September 5, 2007. 39. Interview with advisor to Senator Monica Xavier, Montevideo, September 10, 2007. Interview with Senator Margarita Percovich, Montevideo, September 7 2007. 40. Interview with Senator Margarita Percovich, Montevideo, Uruguay, September 7, 2007. 41. Interview with Senator Margarita Percovich, Montevideo, Uruguay, September 7, 2007. 42. See Cotidiano Mujer, “Silvia Rodriguez Villamil. Historiadora, feminista, militante política y social.” June 29, 2007. www.cotidianomujer.org.uy/sitio/proyectosanteriores/29-publicaciones/revistas/cotidiano-mujer-no43/344-silvia-rodriguezvillamil-historiadora-feminista-militante-politica-y-social. 43. See Caras y Caretas,“Primer comité frentemaplista con perspectiva feminista.” January 10, 2019. 44. Interview with Senator Margarita Percovich, September 7, 2007. Interview with legislator Beatriz Argimón, September 7, 2007. 45. See, for example, the Senate’s session of April 13, 2004 in which Senator Monica Xavier quotes documents from MYSU. www.parlamanto.gub.uy. 46. Interview with Senator Margarita Percovich, Montevideo, Uruguay, September 7, 2007. 47. Interview with Lilian Abracinskas and Alejandra López Gómez from MYSU in 2005 by Cotidiano Mujer. www.cotidianomujer.org.uy/2005/41p6.htm. 48. See El Espectador,“Legisladores insistirán con el debate sobre el aborto.” March 7, 2006. www.espectador.com/1v4_contenido.php?id=63757&sts=1. 49. See Página 12,“Tabaré amenaza con el veto.” March 9, 2006. 50. See interview with Senator Margarita Percovich by newspaper Página 12 on April 12, 2005. 51. Interview with activist within the women’s movement, Montevideo, September 6, 2007. Rafael Sanseviero also refers to the paralysis of the movement during the first year of Vázquez’s government. Interview with Rafael Sanseviero, Montevideo, October 19, 2007. 52. Interview with CNS activist, Montevideo, September 4, 2007. 53. Interview with Alejandra López Gómez, MYSU, Montevideo, September 5, 2007. See also article by Lilian Celiberti on Cotidiano Mujer. www.cotidianomujer.org.uy. 54. Interview with Niki Johnson, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, September 6, 2007.

94 The Case of Uruguay

55. Tabaré Vázquez’s personal position against abortion decriminalization, which differed from his party platform, was well known before he was elected president. However, the fact that he would act upon his personal position came to light only once he was president. His position has been attributed to his conservative family values, and the influence of his religious wife and son (a Catholic priest). 56. Presidential text accompanying the veto in Abracinskas and López Gómez (2009). See also newspaper Clarín,“Uruguay:Tabaré firmó el veto al aborto legal.” November 14, 2008. 57. See Página 12,“El rechazo veloz para un derecho.” November 14, 2008. 58. See Clarín, “En Uruguay el veto a la ley de aborto enfrenta a Tabaré con su partido.” November 15, 2008. 59. See La República,“Aborto: a favor de consulta popular.” October 8, 2010. 60. MYSU’s public statement from September 25, 2012. www.mysu.org.uy/Hoy-se-votaley-del-aborto.

Bibliography Abracinskas, Lilian and Alejandra López Gómez. 2001. Informe sobre Mortalidad Materna. Montevideo: MYSU. Abracinskas, Lilian and Alejandra López Gómez. 2004. Mortalidad Materna, Aborto y Salud en Uruguay, un escenario cambiante. Montevideo: MYSU. Abracinskas, Lilian and Alejandra López Gómez. 2007. Aborto en Debate. Dilemas y Desafíos del Uruguay Democrático. Proceso Político y social 2001–2004 Montevideo: MYSU. Abracinskas, Lilian and Alejandra López Gómez. 2009. El debate social y político sobre la Ley de defensa del derecho a la salud sexual y reproductiva. Montevideo: UNFPA Trilce. Arteaga, Juan José. 2002. Uruguay: Breve Historia Contemporánea. Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Banfi Vique, Analia, Oscar A. Cabrera, Fanny Gómez Lugo and Martin Hevia. 2010. “El veto del ejecutivo uruguayo a la despenalización del aborto: deconstruyendo sus fundamentos.” Época 1 (1). Bertelsmann Stiftung. 2016.Transformation Index BTI. www.bti-project.org. Blofield, Merike. 2006. The Politics of Moral Sin: Abortion and Divorce in Spain, Chile and Argentina. New York: Routledge. Caetano, Gerardo, Jose Rilla and Romeo Pérez. 1989. “Cambios recientes en el sistema político uruguayo concebido como una partidocracia.” In FESUR, Fundación de Cultura Universitaria, Universidad de la República, Instituto de Ciencia Política, ed. Los Partidos Políticos de Cara al 90. Montevideo: Fundación de Cultural Universitaria. Cason, Jeffrey. 2002. “Electoral Reform, Institutional Change and Party Adaptation in Uruguay.” Latin American Politics and Society 44 (3): 89–109. Castillo, Juan. 2007. “Los derechos sexuales y reproductivos en el movimiento sindical.” Paper presented at MYSU’s Conference on Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Montevideo, Uruguay on October 18, 2007. Chasquetti, Daniel and Daniel Buquet. 2004.“La democracia en Uruguay: una partidocracia de consenso.” Política 42: 221–247. CLADEM Uruguay. 2002. Derechos Sexuales y Derechos Reproductivos. Diagnostico Nacional y Balance Regional 1995–2002. Montevideo: CLADEM. Cook, Maria Lorena and Joseph Bazler. 2013.“Bringing Unions Back In: Labour and Left Governments in Latin America” (electronic version). http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell. edu/workingpapers/166/. Correa, Sonia and Mario Pecheny. 2016. Abortos Interruptus: Política y reforma legal del aborto en Uruguay. Montevideo: MYSU.

The Case of Uruguay

95

Craske, Nikki. 1999. Women and Politics in Latin America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Espino, Alma. 1990. “Hay lugar para las mujeres en el movimiento sindical?” In Gabriela Sapriza,ed.Mujer y Poder en las márgenes de la democracia uruguaya, Montevideo: GRECMU. González, Luis. 1995. “Continuity and Change in the Uruguayan Party System.” In Scott Mainwaring and Timothy Scully, eds. Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin America. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Haas, Liesl. 2010.Feminist Policymaking in Chile. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press. Jaquette, Jane. 2009. Feminist Agendas and Democracy in Latin America. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Johnson, Niki. 2011.“El tratamiento de la despenalización del aborto en el ámbito político parlamentario.” In Niki Johnson,Alejandra López Gómez, Graciela Sapriza,Alicia Castro and Guadalberto Arribeltz, eds. Despenalización del aborto en Uruguay: prácticas, actores y discursos. Montevideo: Universidad de la Republica. Johnson, Niki, Alejandra López Gómez, Graciela Sapriza, Alicia Castro and Guadalberto Arribeltz, eds. 2011. Despenalización del aborto en Uruguay: prácticas, actores y discursos. Montevideo: Universidad de la República. Johnson, Niki, Cecilia Rocha and Marcela Schenck. 2011. “La sociedad civil ante la despanalizacion del aborto: opinion publica y movimientos sociales.” In Johnson, López Gómez, Sapriza Castro and Arribeltz, eds. Despenalización del aborto en Uruguay: prácticas, actores y discursos. Montevideo: Universidad de la Republica. Johnson, Niki, Cecilia Rocha and Marcela Schenck. 2015. La insercion del aborto en la agenda politico-publica uruguaya 1985–2013. Montevideo: Cotidiano Mujer. Johnson, Niki,Ana Laura Rodriguez Gusta and Diego Sempol. 2019.“Explaining Advances and Drawbacks in Women’s and LGBTQ Rights in Uruguay.” In Elizabeth Friedman, ed. Seeking Rights from the Left. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Luna, Juan Pablo. 2006. “Programmatic and Non-Programmatic Party Voter Linkages in Two Institutionalized Party Systems: Chile and Uruguay in Comparative Perspective.” Dissertation, UNC, Chapel Hill. Luna, Juan Pablo. 2007.“Frente Amplio and the Crafting of a Social Democratic Alternative in Uruguay.” Latin American Politics & Society 49 (4): 1–30. Mainwaring, Scott. 2018. Party Systems in Latin America: Institutionalization, Decay and Collapse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mainwaring, Scott and Timothy Scully, eds. 1995. Building Democratic Institutions. Party Systems in Latin America. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Mainwaring, Scott and Matthew Shugart, eds. 1997. Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moreira, Constanza. 2006. “Party Systems, Political Alternation and Ideology in the Southern Cone (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay).” Revista Uruguaya de Ciencia Política 2: 1–20. Moreira, Constanza. 2007.“Contexto político y social del Uruguay de la crisis (2000–2004).” In Abracinskas and López Gómez, eds. Aborto en Debate. Dilemas y Desafíos del Uruguay Democrático. Proceso Político y social 2001–2004. Montevideo: MYSU. Moreira, Constanza. 2012. “El Frente Amplio y la Partidocracia Uruguaya.” Semanario Brecha, March 13. Pousadella, Ines. 2016. “Social Mobilization and Political Representation: The Women’s Movement’s Struggle for Legal Abortion in Uruguay.” Voluntas 27: 125–145. Prates, Suzana and Silvia Rodríguez Villamil. 1986. Los movimientos sociales de mujeres en la transición a la democracia. Montevideo: GRECMU.

96 The Case of Uruguay

Pribble, Jennifer. 2013. Welfare and Party Politics in Latin America. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Rico, Álvaro. 2008. Investigación histórica sobre la dictadura y el terrorismo de estado en el Uruguay (1973–1985). Montevideo: Universidad de la República. Sanseviero, Rafael. 2007. “Análisis de Prácticas Feministas.” PDF that collects the author’s articles given by him to me. Selios, Lucia. 2007.“La opinión pública, la democracia representativa y el aborto.” In Lilián Abracinskas and Alejandra López Gómez, eds. El aborto en debate. Dilemas y desafíos del Uruguay democrático. Proceso político y social 2001–2004. Montevideo: MYSU. Tarrow, Sidney. 1993.“Social Protest and Policy Reform: May 1968 and the Loi D’Orientation in France.” Comparative Political Studies 25 (4): 579. Tarrow, Sidney. 1998. Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tartakoff, Laura. 2013.“Continuity in Change: Leftwing Coalitions in Uruguay and Chile.” Global Society 50: 65–72. Tornaría, Carmen. 1990. “La creación de una nueva dimensión de lo político a través de las prácticas de las mujeres.” In Gabriela Sapriza, ed. Mujer y Poder en las márgenes de la democracia uruguaya. Montevideo: GRECMU. Waylen, Georgina. 2000. “Gender and Democratic Politics: A Comparative Analysis of Consolidation in Argentina and Chile.” Journal of Latin American Studies 32 (3): 765–793. Weller, Silvana, Mariana Romero and Silvina Ramos. 2007. “Actores sociales y debate ciudadano en torno a la campaña a favor de la Ley de Defensa de la Salud Sexual y Reproductiva en Uruguay: reflexiones, prácticas y lecciones aprendidas.” In Lilián Abracinskas and Alejandra López Gómez, eds. Aborto en Debate: Dilemas y Desafíos del Uruguay Democrático. Proceso Político y Social 2001–2004. Montevideo: MYSU. Wood, Susan, Lilian Abracinskas, Sonia Correa and Mario Pecheny. 2016. “Reform of Abortion Law in Uruguay: Context, Process and Lessons Learned.” Reproductive Health Matters 24 (48): 102–110. Yaffé, Jaime. 2013. “Consolidación y transformación partidaria. Institucionalización, liderazgo y capacidad de adaptación en el Frente Amplio de Uruguay.” Iberoamericana XIII (50): 7–26.

3 THE CASE OF CHILE Co-Opting the Demand for Abortion Reform

The abortion bill was not drafted together with civil society … the (Bachelet) government seeks to produce an alliance with the movement to support the government’s proposal and to prevent the movement from demanding beyond what they can guarantee. Feminist activist,August 20161

In August 2017, Chile’s parliament passed a law that put an end to the total abortion ban that had been passed by former dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1989, months before handing over power to the first democratically elected president in 16 years.The 2017 bill, sponsored by President Bachelet’s second administration (2014–2018), legalized abortion under three circumstances: Threat to the woman’s life; rape; and fetal malformations incompatible with life outside the womb. In Chapter 1, I argued that women’s movements for abortion reform establish different interaction patterns with state actors in the pursuance of their demands, which then leads to different policy outcomes. In the case of Chile, the women’s movement has been divided on how to advance abortion reform for most of the period of study.The campaign in Chile was weaker than in Uruguay and, as we shall see,Argentina too. Chilean women were unable to operate from a position of strength and their collaboration with those in government reflected as much. While it was women activists that placed the issue on the agenda, particularly after 2010, they extracted little in the way of collaboration with left-wing parties in power to advance legislative reform. Instead, the second administration of Michele Bachelet introduced its own abortion bill, limited interaction with the existing campaigns and feminist organizations and, through secretly and carefully held negotiations within her electoral coalition, crafted a bill and ensured its passing in Congress.The professional character of

98 The Case of Chile

the Socialist Party in Chile and its lack of roots in society, the complexities of coalition governments together with the presence of a strong Catholic Church undermined any alliance between civil society and government experienced in Chile in terms of abortion reform. As a result, while lifting its total ban, Chile ended this process with a very moderate abortion reform that places the country’s policies at the same level at which most Latin American countries have been since the first decades of the twentieth century:A system of legal exceptions for abortion under specific extreme circumstances. The first section of the chapter provides an analysis of the contextual variables of Chile’s political system that inhibited a relationship between the women’s movement for abortion reform and sympathetic allies in power.The second section describes the emergence of the women’s movement and in particular the campaign for legal abortion under three exceptions launched by MILEs,2 the main organization behind moderate abortion reform, together with some parallel initiatives, assessing their strength based on the indicators discussed in the Introduction. The last section analyzes the different phases of abortion policy in Chile and the conflicting dynamics between a struggling and divided women’s movement and an indifferent leftist coalition.

Political Context: A System Closed to Reform Once considered (together with Uruguay) the oldest and strongest democracy of Latin America, Chile saw this path brutally interrupted in 1973 with a coup d’état led by Augusto Pinochet, which put an end to the socialist presidency of Salvador Allende (1970–1973).Allende’s democratic path to socialism had polarized Chilean society, which at the time was characterized by high levels of mobilization and political violence. It has taken Chile many decades to extirpate Pinochet’s legacy from its democracy – quite unlike Uruguay, in which after the democratic transition the old political system was reinstated almost intact. Pinochet’s amarres (tie-up laws) ensured his dominance as well as that of right-wing parties in Congress, which led to a political system closed to progressive change, abortion reform being just one of its victims.There were nine non-elected seats in the Senate that were appointed by the president, the Supreme Court and the National Security Council. The binomial electoral system accounted for an over-representation of right-wing parties that espoused a conservative view of family and women’s role. This power arrangement, coupled with the desire to consolidate democracy and prevent a new coup d’état, created a “politics of consensus” among the main political coalitions. The approach adopted by most political actors after the extreme polarization of the Allende years, followed by Pinochet’s repressive policies, was one marked by moderation.While this strategy ensured the initial goals of consolidating democracy and preventing a new coup d’état, it gradually alienated many new social actors, particularly after the year 2010.They saw themselves excluded

The Case of Chile

99

from the political process, and women’s movements and the issue of reproductive rights and abortion were two of the casualties. Chile’s political system and history set the stage for the women’s movements’ struggle for abortion reform in a way that prevented a clear collaboration between those in civil society and those in government.The following sections discuss the specific characteristics of the party system, the left-wing parties, the separation of powers and the power of the Catholic Church in Chile that prevented collaboration between women activists for abortion reform and the left-wing parties in power.

Party System and Left-Wing Political Parties For most of its democratic life Chile has been dominated by a party system with clearly defined issue polarities (Valenzuela et al. 2018). By the end of the nineteenth century Chile saw the emergence of six to eight major political parties that reflected the main cleavages of the time: Religious versus secular, disagreements around labor and socio-economic policies. Scholars usually describe Chile as having the oldest multiparty system in Latin America, resembling European countries (Mainwaring and Scully 1995; Mainwaring 2018): communist and socialist on the Left; radicals and Christian democrats in the Center; and liberals and conservatives on the Right.After the 1990 democratic transition, the historically tripartite party system was recast into two coalitions created around the support or opposition to the Pinochet dictatorship. The first, a Center and Left coalition under the name of Concertación of Parties for Democracy (Nueva Mayoría since 2014), has opposed the regime.This coalition has consistently included the Christian Democrats (PDC), the Socialist Party (PS), the Radical Party (PR) and the Party for Democracy (PPD) together with other smaller parties depending on the specific years. The second, a right-wing coalition with numerous names throughout its history, has supported Pinochet and consistently included two main parties, the Independent Democratic Union (UDI) and National Renewal (RN). Throughout its democratic history, Chile has always had a highly institutionalized party system (Luna and Altman 2011; Siavelis 2000; Mainwaring 2018), an exception in a region characterized with overall low institutionalization. Political parties are programmatic and cover a wide range of the ideological spectrum (Llamazares and Sandell 2000). Parties have historically had strong roots in society and have been able to channel most social and political groups that mobilized at different points throughout the history of the country (Scully 1995;Valenzuela et al. 2018). However, scholars have recently pointed to some changes in Chile’s political parties that are increasingly eroding the high level of institutionalization (Posner 2004; Luna and Altman 2011; Pribble 2013; Siavelis 2016). Luna and Altman have highlighted the low levels of rootedness and legitimacy parties have in society in the post-transition period, particularly when compared to that of Uruguay, the other country with a long tradition of high party system institutionalization

100 The Case of Chile

(Luna and Altman 2011). In her comparative analysis of welfare systems in Chile and Uruguay, Pribble describes how the parties of the Concertación have downplayed their links with grassroots organizations and their bases and instead have become parties dominated by experts (Pribble 2013). That has been the path of the Socialist Party in particular, which would seem to be the logical partner for demanding abortion reform given its secularism and progressive ideology. The Socialists have de-emphasized the historic links with grassroots organizations and unions and have increasingly become what Posner calls an “electoralist party,” one whose primary goal is to develop the broadest possible base of electoral support. Unlike the Uruguayan Frente Amplio, the Chilean Socialist Party currently has no formal organization devoted to political education and the organizing of popular sectors (Posner 2004). This distance the Socialist Party has moved from its bases helps explain the difficulties women’s organizations have experienced in finding an open channel of communication with leftist parties in Congress, even with the Concertación’s strong presence in the Legislative branch. In the first years after the democratic transition, Socialist leaders refused to challenge the Church directly, in recognition of this institution’s protection of human rights during the military dictatorship (Dides et al. 2011; Waylen 2016). This fact, added to the presence of a religious party (Christian Democrats) in the Center-Left coalition, explains why politicians have prioritized their electoral goals and the maintenance of their successful coalition instead of reaching out to women’s movements and their bases for their input in policy-making. The fact that the Concertación was a coalition of parties and not a federative party like the Uruguayan Frente Amplio (Tartakoff 2013), meant the unity of the coalition was more delicate and thus the relationships between parties needed more careful handling than in the case of Uruguay. The other potential ally for the women’s movement within the Center-Left coalition has been the Party for Democracy (PPD). In 1987, during the last years of the military regime, Socialist leaders came together and created the PPD as an instrumental and umbrella party to oppose Pinochet’s dictatorship. As the first party to include internal gender quotas, the PPD appealed to many socialist women, who decided to remain part of the PPD instead of joining the maledominated Socialist Party. Since early on the PPD has had strong feminist voices such as those of Adriana Muñoz3 and María Antonieta Sáa,4 who have organized many of the initiatives for women’s issues under the Concertación, including some of the first bills on therapeutic abortion. Members of this party collaborated with the first civil society campaign for abortion reform launched by MILEs in 2013. Honoring its past, the party in 2018 rebranded itself as a “feminist party.”5 While these characteristics made the PPD a perfect ally for the women’s movement, its smaller electoral base and consequently weaker role within the electoral coalition has limited its voice in the Concertación administrations. In fact, there have been an increasing number of women with feminist perspectives within all the parties of the Concertación, a phenomenon that reflects

The Case of Chile

101

a general trend among progressive parties in the region in the last decade.While politicians ignored feminist issues and voices in the first decades after the 1990s democratic transitions, which explain in part the indifference towards the issue of abortion during this phase, this attitude began to change with the emergence of stronger feminist movements in Chile and the region. Scholars have already highlighted the importance of the work of women politicians within their parties in advancing a feminist agenda (Haas 2010).As noted above, this emergence has been happening not only in the traditional leftist parties such as the PS, which have been historically dominated by male leadership, but also in the religiously associated PDC. Scholar Teresa Valdés argues that the kind of work that Christian Democrat women such as Laura Albornoz and María Luisa España were exposed to through being part of the National Service for Women (SERNAM) during the first two Concertación administrations has put them in touch with women’s realities and made them more sensitive towards gender issues. As Valdes observes, “This happened through praxis, not theory.”6 These women introduced nuances into the staunch opposition against abortion under all circumstances that the party had historically embraced in line with the Catholic Church’s position, preparing the terrain for the approval of legal exceptions to abortion under certain circumstances in the recent reform.7

The Executive Branch and the Separation of Powers The Executive branch plays a significant role in the formulation of government policy in all presidential systems. In a region with strong presidential systems, Chile has a president with particularly strong formal powers. The 1980 Constitution drafted under the Pinochet dictatorship gave the Executive branch extra powers, many of which remained in place throughout the studied period.Thus, in Chile’s case the role of the Executive is even larger than in the other two countries; scholars have classified the country as a case of “exaggerated presidentialism” (Siavelis 2000;Alemán and Navia 2016). Aside from the regular attributions present in presidential systems (such as veto powers and the authority to name cabinet members without congressional approval), the Executive in Chile has the power to introduce bills and the ability to force debate on them by declaring “urgencies” (Siavelis 2000). Congress has then 30, 10 or 3 days to discuss a bill depending on the level of “urgency” applied. No other bill can be discussed until “urgent” bills are dealt with. Until 2005, during the extraordinary session (September to May), only the Executive bills or congressional bills sponsored by the Executive could be discussed.The president has in this legal context strong agenda-setting powers, making the Executive a key actor in the discussion of abortion reform in Congress. Scholars agree that Chilean presidents have wide legislative powers. Shugart and Carey had ranked the Chilean presidency as the highest in the region in this respect (1992). Siavelis has gone so far as to state that the Chilean president is the

102 The Case of Chile

most important legislator in this country (2000), which results in a weaker separation of powers and a weaker Congress.This fact is aggravated by the location of the building of Congress in Valparaíso, a coastal city two hours away from the capital city, Santiago, where the other branches reside.This distance makes communication between branches of government more difficult and weakens Congressional input (Siavelis 2000). The geographical location of Congress has also affected the relationships between the women’s movement and legislators. Many organizations are situated in Santiago and to organize demonstrations or meet with legislators they have to travel to Valparaíso, creating yet another obstacle to a close and fluid relationship. The power of a strong president and the resulting weaker Congress have direct consequences on the possibilities for abortion reform.The president has a key role in defining abortion policy, and all presidents post-transition (with the exception of President Bachelet during her second mandate) have expressed their opposition to any change to the total ban. For most of these years, then, presidents have used their powers to prevent abortion from entering the political agenda. The exception came in 2014, when President Bachelet decided to push for the re-introduction of therapeutic abortion, with three exceptions. Interestingly, however, she used these same constitutional powers to advance the Executivesponsored bill in Congress. In May of 2017 when her abortion bill was stalled in Congress, President Bachelet defined it as “urgent,” ensuring its discussion the following July and its passing in August. In their 2005 study of Chilean politics, Haas and Blofield stated that successful reforms on women’s rights often originated in the Executive and had the support of SERNAM. The passing of the 2017 abortion reform confirms their findings, making Executive preferences a key variable to consider.

The Power of the Catholic Church The power of the Catholic Church and its influence in politics is relevant in particular when trying to understand the context in which legislators decide whether or not to collaborate with women’s organizations in advancing abortion reform.This section considers the formal and informal channels of influence the Church has with Chilean political and economic elites and in society as a whole. When compared with the Catholic Church in Uruguay and Argentina, Chile’s Catholic Church holds the strongest level of influence in politics and as such has been able to obstruct the discussion of abortion reform for most of the period analyzed here. Legislators have seen their margin of maneuver reduced in this arena because of the wide influence of the Catholic Church at both the elite and societal level. Chilean society is close in religiosity to Argentinian society and is much more religious than that of Uruguay. According to the World Values Survey in 1989, 28% of the population attended weekly religious services. In 2014, 23% did so,

The Case of Chile

103

showing a relatively stable pattern of religiosity. Only 27% of the population stated that they never attend services, compared to 67% in Uruguay (World Values Survey 2005–2009).8 While the level of religiosity among society as a whole is comparatively high, Chilean society as a whole is less religious and conservative than its elites. Feminist sociologist Teresa Valdés reflects on this issue, stating that “Chile is not really a conservative society as many claim, but it has a conservative elite that is not in touch with the rest of society.”9 It is particularly at the level of political and economic elites that influence is much larger in Chile than in the other two country cases. In Chile, formal separation between Church and state did not occur until the 1925 Constitution.The peaceful transition into secularism was possible due to the many concessions by the Alessandri government (1920–1925): The Church was given public juridical personality, rights to own property and to maintain its own system of education, tax exemptions, public support for Church educational programs and the permissibility of religion courses in public schools (Smith 2014).To that end, Pinochet’s 1980 Constitution and his 1983 decree No. 924 established the teaching of religion in public schools. Parents were given a choice, but had to opt out rather than opt in. Thanks to the Christian Democrats, the Church in Chile also has a direct voice in the political system, a representation that is present in neither Uruguay nor Argentina. In 1938, a group of conservative youth leaders formed the Falange, the antecessor of the current Christian Democratic Party (PDC), which has ensured the active presence of the Church’s moral and social doctrine in Chile’s political system ever since. The PDC became a social democratic party aligned with the Left in terms of socio-economic issues following Catholic social doctrine. This offered the Church an ally on the Left, in addition to the traditional links it maintained with conservative parties (currently UDI and RN),10 thus strengthening its political influence regardless of which coalition won the election. In the year 2000, 25% of Catholics identified with the PDC – a minority, certainly, but a significant one (Hagopian 2009). The PDC has given Chile three presidents throughout its history, including two after the democratic transition – Patricio Aylwin (1990–1994) and Eduardo Frei (1994–2000). Formal channels have been relevant in the Church’s strategy to influence the political development in these countries. However, informal channels have been equally as important, if not more so, despite the 1925 separation of Church and state (Sigmund 1986; Lies and Malone 2006). Historical, political and institutional factors explain the power of the Church’s informal influence. Particularly significant is the Church’s interconnection with Chile’s economic elite (Blofield 2006), beginning with the fact that the Catholic Church is the largest landowner in Chile.Two of the main media magnates, Agustin Edwards11 and Ricardo Claro,12 were members of two of the most conservative Catholic organizations: Opus Dei and Legionaries of Christ, respectively (Blofield 2006).There are no comparable examples in Argentina or Uruguay.

104 The Case of Chile

The Church has another powerful channel of influence that has been less studied: Educating political elites.The Church has recognized its interest in Catholic education in numerous documents,13 and the extensive networks of Catholic educational institutions at all levels throughout Latin America is evidence of its commitment to its mission to educate the populace in Catholic values. This strategy allows the Church to maintain its cultural hegemony among society as a whole and in particular among the elite. Analyzing the different reach that Catholic educational institutions – in particular universities – have in the education of political elites is yet another way of measuring its political influence.The larger the percentage of elites educated by Catholic universities, the larger their exposure to Catholic teachings – and, significantly, the lesser their contact with feminist and reproductive rights notions. Chile has the oldest Catholic University in the Southern Cone, in place since 1888. Throughout the twentieth century, elites have been behind the creation of new Catholic universities such as Los Andes and Finis Terrae, affiliated with Opus Dei and Legionaries of Christ, respectively. These institutions have given the country a significant percentage of their politicians, in particular those who make up the right-wing parties. Of the three countries in this study, Chile has the largest percentage of politicians that have attended Catholic universities: 23% of representatives and 24% of senators. If we disaggregate the data by electoral coalition in this same period, 18% of deputies and only 9% of senators of the Concertación had attended Catholic universities, while 32% of deputies and 41% of senators from Alianza por Chile had done so.14 In short, the Catholic Church’s deep involvement in educating economic and political elites ensures its political dominance.

The Women’s Movement and the Fight for Abortion Reform in Chile Campaigns for abortion reform are usually nested in a wider national women’s movement that in Chile, as in the other Southern Cone countries, emerged and developed during the military dictatorship of the 1970s. Understanding the characteristics of this broader women’s movement is relevant to analyzing the strength of the campaign for abortion reform. In general, scholars have described the Chilean women’s movement as strong at the end of the 1980s (Ríos Tobar et al. 2003; Baldéz 2002; Forstenzer 2017). Women’s mobilization was in fact a key actor in the process of democratization in Chile. However, once the democratic transition took place in 1990, political parties took center stage and displaced social movements, including women’s organizations.The political system ruled by the institutional legacies of the dictatorship discouraged an already-weakened women’s movement in which divisions around demands and strategies emerged and prevented the organization of specific campaigns for policy reforms.This became the period that some scholars have come

The Case of Chile

105

to define as a phase of “feminist silence” (Ríos Tobar et al. 2003). It has only been in the last decade that women’s mobilization has experienced a strong comeback, in what has been already defined as the third wave of feminist mobilization in Chile.15 But for most of the period analyzed in this chapter, women’s mobilization remained low. With particular regard to the issue of abortion, Chile’s women’s movement has struggled to agree on a common position, a factor that has added to the lack of allies and opportunities in the political system, and discouraged clear campaigns for abortion reform during most of the period after the democratic transition. The fact that the starting point for Chile in terms of abortion policy was a total ban implied there were always two options on the table: A moderate reform that would take the country to the position held by most of its Latin American neighbors, i.e., a system of exception; and a more radical reform that would legalize abortion on demand without any intermediate steps. As events unfolded, it took 20 years after the democratic transition before women were able to put together a clear campaign for a bill demanding abortion reform.The first campaign, launched in 2010, was that of MILEs (Miles por la Interrupción Legal del Embarazo), which demanded legal abortion under three familiar circumstances: Threat to the women’s life and health; rape; and fetal malformations. This chapter will look more closely at this campaign as it was the first one to articulate a bill to advance demands for abortion reform. After the description of the larger women’s movement and how it affected the lack of a strong campaign for abortion decriminalization, this section moves on to measure the strength of MILEs’ abortion campaign and other parallel movement initiatives in each of the dimensions defined in the Introduction: Number of organizations; support of key social actors; media presence; and public support and protests.

The Women’s Movement in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s After the first wave of women’s mobilization that took place in the first half of the twentieth century on women’s civil and political rights, women’s activism re-emerged in the 1970s closely linked to the leftist activism around in favor of Allende’s socialist government (1970–1973) (Ríos Tobar et al. 2003). Similar to the other Southern Cone countries, women’s organizations were very active in opposing the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (Valdés 2000; Ríos Tobar et al. 2003). In fact, women’s organizations became a significant actor in the campaign to say “No” to Pinochet, during the 1988 plebiscite to decide whether Pinochet would continue in power until 1997 or be forced to abandon the presidency in 1989.Women also used this opportunity to say “No” to other things they opposed, such as the patriarchal and authoritarian character of Chilean society (Ríos Tobar et al. 2003). The slogan of the time was “democracy in the country and in the house.”

106 The Case of Chile

During this period, there were two kinds of women’s organizations: Feminist groups with a socialist affiliation made up of professional middle-class women; and popular women’s groups organized around economic needs like those of the pobladoras (women in shantytowns). What united them was their opposition to Pinochet. In July 1988, 22 women’s organizations drafted a document known as Demandas de las Mujeres a la Democracia (“Women’s Demands to Democracy”) with the goal of presenting them to the newly elected democratic government. They elaborated a program in which they proposed the creation of a government office to address women’s issues with ministerial rank and a gender quota of 30% for decision-making positions in government. Their main concerns at the time were the creation of government mechanisms to address women’s citizenship and civil rights, women’s rights as mothers and workers (Pieper Mooney 2009).The issue of abortion was not included. In December of that same year women from centrist and left-wing political parties, feminists and women’s organizations created the group the Concertación of Women for Democracy (Baldéz 2002).Their goal was to influence the policies of the political coalition against Pinochet that became to be known as the Concertación. The group prepared a wide-ranging government program focusing on gender (Montecino and Rossetti 1990). But demands deemed too controversial – read: Abortion – were excluded (Baldéz 2002; Pieper Mooney 2009). In 1989, more than 20,000 women met in Santa Laura Stadium to commemorate Women’s Day and celebrate the return of democracy, the high turnout indicating the strength of the movement at the time (Baldéz 2002). But the women failed to agree on abortion reform, either in principle or strategy. In the end they decided to leave it out of the program. After the intense mobilization of the 1980s, the women’s movement as a whole gradually weakened (Ríos Tobar 2006;Valdés 2002; Ríos Tobar et al. 2003;Alvarez et al. 1998; Baldéz 2002; Forstenzer 2017). Ríos Tobar attributes the reasons to “internal divisions, professionalization, decentralization and specialization as well as a tenuous autonomy vis a vis the state and political parties have all played a role in weakening feminist voices in the political debate” (Ríos Tobar 2009: 23). As in the other Southern Cone countries, democratic transitions in Chile brought political parties back to the main stage, decreasing the field of action of civil society actors (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986; Oxhorn 1995). Some women activists went back to work within the political parties and the state, others continued to work in civil society associations, and still others worked in both. However, unlike in Uruguay, the close links women from different organizations forged during the fight for democracy increasingly weakened. Different factors explain this process. At the beginning of the 1980s, most women’s organizations were centered in Santiago, but in the 1990s organizations spread throughout the country, stretching the bonds between them. In addition, the divisions between moderate and radical Left parties were strong during the transition and, unlike in Uruguay where

The Case of Chile

107

women mostly identified with the Frente Amplio, in Chile women’s party allegiances tended to prevail over a commitment to women’s issues (Ríos Tobar 2009). Finally, the Center-Left coalition’s rise to power immediately after the transition opened opportunities for women activists closer to Concertación parties to take jobs in government, raising the issue of autonomy vis-à-vis the state from early on and more strongly than in the other two cases. In the 1990s, Latin American women’s movements experienced a process of NGOization (Alvarez 1999).Women’s NGOs proliferated, and while they interacted with successive governments in issues of sexual and reproductive rights, the roles were always as technicians and experts, not as representatives of women in civil society (Ríos Tobar et al. 2003). More and more grassroots activists came to believe the government was interacting with women’s NGOs as a way of trying to demonstrate they were taking women’s voices into account, but the reality was otherwise. In addition, there was among women’s organizations an increasing specialization and a tendency to look inwards instead of focusing on public policy. During the 1990s the strong women’s movement that fought against the dictatorship fractured and different groups began to work towards specific goals: Violence against women, equal job opportunities and sexual and reproductive rights, with little articulation or coordination among themselves. Feminist collectives proliferated but they mostly remained focused on creating spaces to reflect, develop and strengthen their feminist identities. Only a few situated in Valparaíso developed activities to influence the public sphere (Ríos Tobar et al. 2003). Among the groups focused on sexual and reproductive rights the issue of abortion was not a priority.16 The wider issues of contraceptives and sexual education kept taking center stage and the more controversial issue of abortion continued to be avoided. Throughout the 1990s, women’s groups internally debated this issue and once again found no agreement on which positions to take, whether to demand decriminalization or legalization, and under which circumstances to do so.The issue was left to internal discussions and was not articulated in public statements or advocacy. Feminist activists declined interviews and avoided responding to right-wing editorials on abortion, given that in the past they had been ridiculed for doing so (Blofield 2006). As a result, internal discussions produced neither a bill to introduce in congress nor a political strategy to move the issue forward.17 The political context also contributed to women’s paralysis on the issue of reproductive rights more broadly. As stated in previous sections, Pinochet’s institutional legacy created a political system that was closed to any reform on sexual and reproductive rights. In addition, conservative views on abortion were shared by one of the key parties within the Center-Left coalition in power – the Christian Democrats. Furthermore, the Socialist Party was reluctant to address any issue or take any position that might put the electoral coalition at risk. Gender issues were not yet a priority for the Socialist Party, which remained as patriarchal as any other political party.18

108 The Case of Chile

The demobilization of the movement accelerated when the external funding dried up after 2000. For example, during these years the Ford Foundation, one of the women’s organizations’ main sources of funding, closed its program on sexual and reproductive rights in Chile. Given the conservative stance of most of the CEOs of large Chilean companies, there was little chance of finding domestic funding (Blofield 2006). Notwithstanding the general weakening of the women’s movement, two women’s organizations worked hard on sexual and reproductive rights starting in the 1990s.The Foro de Salud Sexual y Derechos Reproductivos (Sexual Health and Reproductive Rights Forum) was launched in 1989, at the beginning of the democracy transition, and included 53 women collectives and NGOs. During the 1990s it was the local chapter of the September 28th Latin American campaign for abortion reform. However, given the political winds, it organized few public activities to advocate for this change and did not develop a close relationship with legislators that might support the cause. However, a second group within the forum, Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir, has been the more active in support of abortion rights.The local branch of this organization opened in 1995 in Valparaíso.19 While the broader women’s movement was mostly absent in the issue of abortion, it did however mobilize strongly in 2008 when the Constitutional Court prohibited the distribution of the morning-after pill based on allegations it was an abortifacient. In part due to this large mobilization, this ruling was later reversed by a 2010 bill introduced by President Bachelet that legalized its distribution (Brito Peña et al. 2012).

New Initiatives for Abortion Reform After 20 years of little in the way of abortion activism, the second decade of the new century brought new reform initiatives. Activists in Uruguay and Argentina mounted a single clear campaign demanding safe, free and legal abortion by request, but women in Chile took up multiple parallel initiatives, some urging a moderate reform and others insisting on more ambitious claims. A confluence of different factors with origins in different arenas such as institutions, elections and at the grassroots explain this new scenario. By 2010 the Chilean political context had changed from the post- transition years. Institutional and electoral reforms were coupled with a re-energization of civil society creating a new political and social context in which the launching of a campaign for abortion reform could finally be viable. Institutional and electoral reforms allowed for the increase of available allies to women’s rights activists in Congress. Specifically, institutional reforms eliminated many of the authoritarian enclaves that were a legacy from the Pinochet era. In 2005, the nine appointed senators were eliminated by a constitutional reform, putting an end to the domination of the right in this chamber.Ten years later the political scenario became

The Case of Chile

109

even more favorable for women’s movements. In 2015, Congress approved the electoral reform and implemented proportional representation, thus eliminating the binomial system that had led to an over-representation of right-wing parties. In addition, gender quotas were included requiring 40% of candidates to be women, increasing the number of available allies to the movement. In terms of electoral factors, 2010 marked the first time the Center-Left coalition Concertación lost a presidential election.The right-wing coalition, Coalition for Change, formerly Alianza por Chile, won and businessman Sebastian Piñera became president (2010–2014).This interregnum placed the Concertación for the first time in the opposition, contributing to more open discussions on many issues, abortion being one of them (Dides et al. 2011).20 In 2011, the Socialist Party, having moved away from the feeling of being indebted to the Catholic Church for its support of human rights during the military dictatorship, developed a party platform that included the legalization of abortion under three circumstances. In addition, the Concertación broadened the electoral alliance in place since the democratic transition to include other left-wing parties, among them the Chilean Communist Party, and created the new coalition Nueva Mayoría.This increased the power and influence of left-wing parties (Siavelis 2016), making the coalition more open to more ambitious policy changes. This new political scenario created opportunities for interaction between left-wing parties and women’s organizations. Other changes within civil society further encouraged an increased mobilization for abortion rights. The first was the success of the social movement to demand the availability of the morning-after pill. In this case women’s organizations came together and successfully mobilized to support the government’s distribution of the pill proposed by President Bachelet during her first mandate (2006–2010) and opposed the Supreme Court ruling halting the practice. Second, 2010 brought a new wave of mobilization unmatched since the democracy protests of the late 1980s (Crispi and Jackson 2014; Ríos Tobar and Ajenjo Martínez 2014). The main source of energy for this wave was the student movement. As early as 2006, high school students took over schools demanding the end of the municipal administration of education implemented by Pinochet and changes in the curricula. In 2011, university students protested in the streets against the Piñera administration.The youth demanded free education and tax reform.These demonstrations had the effect of returning Chilean society back to its tradition of strong popular mobilization and participation, which had been silenced during the first 20 years after the democratic transition for fear of a return to the military dictatorship.“We are the generation that was born without fear” was one of the students’ movements slogans and showed how the generational change could bring social change and policy reform in diverse policy areas (Somma 2012). Of particular note, the students have shown strong support for abortion reform proposals, within their larger educational agenda. Within a context of large student mobilization women activists began organizing for abortion reform. A formal and organized campaign demanding legal

110 The Case of Chile

change was launched in 2010. It was then that a collective of women’s organizations came together to create MILEs and were joined in this initiative by some members of left-wing political parties, particularly the PPD. In 2013 the collective launched a campaign introducing a bill in Congress to reinstate therapeutic abortion under “the familiar” three circumstances:Threat to women’s health and life; rape; and fetal malformations. Nine legislators from the Concertación sponsored the bill, among them PPD politicians María Antonieta Sáa and Adriana Muñoz.21 Not all women’s organizations agreed with this strategy and the more radical feminist groups refused to participate given the bill’s moderation.Those who supported the bill thought it a step in the right direction, an important engagement within a longer battle; those who rejected it thought this moderate reform would block a more ambitious one in the future.22 Among the more radical group were two organizations: Coordinadora Feministas en Lucha (Coordination of the Feminist Struggle) and the Mesa de Acción por el Aborto (Table of Action for Abortion). This section measures the strength of the campaign for abortion reform, focusing mostly on the moderate reform proposed by MILEs, and to a lesser extent on the parallel actions of more radical groups demanding abortion on demand. The overall assessment of both abortion campaigns is that they were weak initiatives compared to the Uruguayan and Argentinean campaigns. Unlike the other two cases, the lack of unity around a common goal was already evidence of their weakness. In fact, the MILEs moderate campaign proposing a system of exceptions received no support from key social actors such as doctors, lawyers or unions. Overall the campaigns’ media presence was low and its demonstrations were few and failed to draw large numbers of people to the streets. Public opinion favored moderate reform, but in this case this support predates the MILEs’ campaign and bill.

Number of Organizations Two branches coexist within the women’s movement that bring together each of the positions around abortion reform. MILEs represents the first and more moderate space. Its members include five women’s organizations (Association for Family Protection (APROFA), Catholics for Free Choice, Corporación La Morada, Sexual Health and Reproductive Rights Forum, and the Observatory on Gender and Equity); one movement for sexual diversity (Movement of Homosexual Integration and Liberation, MOVILH); representatives of three political parties (PPD, PS and PRO); and the Latin American and Caribbean Women’s Health Network. The more radical branch, in favor of the legalization of abortion on request, is represented by two groups. The Coordinadora Feministas en Lucha (Coordination of the Feminist Struggle) emerged in 2013 as a space of articulation to link different organizations that define themselves as feminists or in favor of sexual

The Case of Chile

111

diversity.As of 2018 it reunited close to 100 different collectives and organizations, showing the growth of radical feminism in the country.The Mesa de Acción por el Aborto (Action Table for Abortion), launched in 2015 with the goal of generating arguments to support women’s rights to choose over their bodies, includes such organizations as APROFA, Corporación Humanas, Amnesty International, Fondo Alquimia, Fundación Instituto de la Mujer, Observatorio de Genero y Equidad, Fondo de Equidad de Genero en Salud and Coordinadora Autónoma contra la Violencia. Mesa de Acción por el Aborto also includes political parties such as Revolución Democrática and Izquierda Autónoma, and academics from Universidad Diego Portales and Universidad de Chile.23 Aside from these two branches (the moderates and the radicals) within the movement for abortion rights, a third feminist collective focuses on direct action and seeks no interaction with the state. Lesbianas y Feministas (Lesbians and Feminists) has since 2009 set up an abortion hotline to provide information on medical abortion to women going through an unwanted pregnancy.24 Protected by the right to information, they have resisted many conservative legal assaults and are still providing this service until today. Lesbianas y Feministas is a network of 19 feminist collectives distributed throughout the country. It has printed a manual and organizes workshops on the issue in different localities. For this network, direct action takes prevalence and it has thus remained distant from civil society and the government’s campaigns to advocate for legal reform. Its slogans reject the government’s intervention in women’s provision of abortion: “Without doctors and police abortion is a joy!” In its Facebook page it proclaims its autonomy:“We do not talk to the government neither do we play the game of some politicians during electoral times: we talk directly to women. Our political commitment is with them.”25 According to legal scholar Lidia Casas, these radical feminist groups are growing but have not interfered with the legal process of abortion reform. They have been critical but have not boycotted it, which for her is a symbol of political maturity.26

Support of Key Social Actors Gaining the support of different social actors has been harder in Chile than in the neighboring countries. Even the more moderate campaign organized by MILEs struggled in this realm.As a result, MILEs developed an explicit strategy of seeking allies to reaffirm the legitimacy of its demands. From early on the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation (MOVILH) joined forces with women’s organizations. However, support was less forthcoming from key actors that have been very helpful in the process of abortion reform in other countries, such as doctors or lawyers. Neither unions nor public universities took a public stance on this issue either. In 2015, a large group of women within the Universidad de Chile wrote a manifesto in favor of abortion by request, but this was not the institutional position of the university.27

112 The Case of Chile

Chilean doctors have even more conservative viewpoints on the issue of abortion and have many times been a vocal outlet for the opposition. In 1998, for example, the Chilean Medical Association expressed its support for a bill to increase the penalties for abortion and redefine this practice as homicide. In 2003 a 27-year-old woman and mother of two requested a therapeutic abortion given that her pregnancy was causing a serious threat to her health, and her child had no chance of living outside the womb. In this case, the Chilean Medical Association supported her and requested the health minister’s authorization to induce labor.28 However, the controversy sparked by the sole mention of the word abortion was such that doctors stated that this was not a case of “therapeutic abortion” but one of “interruption of a pregnancy.”29 The difference reflected that in the case of the latter, the goal of the intervention was not to end the life of the fetus to save the mother, but to try to save both lives.30 More recently, in light of the bill introduced by President Bachelet in Congress in 2015, the Medical College of Chile stated its support for legal abortion – only for the cases of fetal unviability and risk to the woman’s life. It has stated that in case of rape the woman can carry the pregnancy to term with no risks to her health if she receives medical, economic and psychological support.31 The only medical association that has expressed support for the MILEs campaign has been the Association of Chilean Midwives (Colegio de Matronas y Matrones de Chile). Some doctors have even demonstrated against the moderate abortion reform proposed by the Bachelet administration. In September of 2016 when the bill was in the Senate, doctors from Catholic hospitals organized a demonstration across from the presidential palace in La Moneda and presented the Executive with 46,000 signatures against the bill.32

Media Presence Overall the Chilean media has offered little coverage of women’s organizations advocating for abortion reform, particularly in comparison with media coverage in Uruguay and Argentina.While in the early years this assessment could be explained by the weakness and low level of mobilization of activists around the issue of abortion, its continuation suggests those were not the only reasons. Even after 2010 when mobilization increased, the MILEs campaign and its activities did not receive, with few exceptions, large coverage in most media outlets. In 2011 MILEs designed a media strategy and launched numerous adds to inform citizens and influence public opinion on this issue. The first advertisements provided information on Chile’s highly restrictive abortion policy, telling stories of extreme cases and the women’s inability to access a safe and legal abortion. In 2015 it launched an online media campaign called “Abortion tutorials,” which broke the silence and was widely covered both by national and international media.33 The videos were a series of mock abortion tutorials that showed pregnant women throwing themselves into traffic or down the stairs.They were deliberately dark and disturbing to bring attention to the lack of options women

The Case of Chile

113

had in the throes of an unwanted pregnancy under the total abortion ban. The advertisement ended with the statement “In Chile an accidental abortion is the only kind of abortion that is not considered a crime.” In only two weeks the videos had received more than 1.5 million views. When Congress discussed the bill introduced by President Bachelet, MILEs designed a new media campaign reminding people that therapeutic abortion was allowed until Pinochet outlawed it in 1989. The promotions told stories of women who endured illegal and unsafe abortions. The media project put a face to these tragic stories. The more radical organizations have rarely been covered by the mainstream media and when they were it was mostly in a negative light due to the existence of violent incidents in their July 25th demonstrations for abortion reform.34 They have, however, a good management of social media, which is their main channel of communication.

Public Opinion Support Unlike the Uruguayan movement, the Chilean MILEs campaign did not have a strong grassroots strategy to advocate for abortion reform. As acknowledged by MILEs’ own members, the campaign was launched after a study of abortion in four Latin American countries by Chilean academics that revealed large support among citizens for the legalization of abortion under certain circumstances: 67% of Chileans supported abortion when the life or health of the woman is at risk, in cases of rape and fetal malformation (Dides and Fernández 2018).The activists read public opinion trends on the issue and decided to launch the campaign that would later lead to legal reform. In addition to showing how academics can frame and inspire reform, this situation also confirms the fact that even when public opinion might be favorable to policy reform, action depends on the work of social movements.Without a movement to define the issue as such, organize around it and advocate for reform, it is unlikely that policy change will happen, even when public opinion might favor policy change. These public opinion results are supported by other surveys.The World Values Survey has asked the same question throughout the years, which allows for a longitudinal comparison: “When is abortion justifiable?” Those who never justified abortion had gone down from 75% in 1989–1993 to 43% in 2010–2014. Two national surveys conducted by the Universidad Diego Portales have reported that in the last decade the support for legal abortion when the life of a woman is at risk has been quite high: 66.5% in 2009 and 70% in 2014. The support in case of rape has gone slightly down: 66.9% in 2009 and 61.9% in 2014.The one that grew more strongly has been the case of fetal malformation: From 46.3% in 2009 to 67.8% in 2014 (MILEs 2015). Overall the support for legal abortion based on a woman’s decision is still quite low, although it is growing: It was 15% in 2009 (Miles 2015) reaching 22% in 2017,35 which might be partly attributable to the

114 The Case of Chile

growing voices of radical feminist organizations advocating for the legalization of the practice based on the woman’s decision.

Street Protests The campaigns for abortion reform have not used street protests as their main strategy, nor have they mobilized large numbers of people in the protests they did organize. Data around these events were collected based on interviewing activists, the Social Observatory of Latin America36 database on protests from 2000 to 2012 and searches in the newspaper La Tercera, which usually covers these demonstrations. In the earlier years (1990–2010), movement actions were few and scattered. In the mid-1990s the Sexual Health and Reproductive Rights Forum began to organize monthly protests in the Plaza de Armas in Santiago to remember the women who died from illegal abortions.They did so by borrowing symbols from popular Catholicism and setting up altars to honor these women (Borland 2004). However, they were unable to involve a significant number of supporters and those passing by paid no attention to them.As a result, the Forum decided to halt these protests after a couple of months (Blofield 2006). Starting in 2004 Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir organized demonstrations in Valparaíso on September 28, to coincide with the regional campaign’s designation of that day as the day for the decriminalization of abortion.37 Every year the organization gathered around 100 people, which was considered by the membership to be a good turnout considering Valparaíso is a very conservative city, the base of the navy and the navy school.Again, however, these protests were small and were not covered by the media. Figure 3.1 shows an increase of demonstrations for abortion reform starting in the year 2013. One of these took place in 2014 and was the first massive demonstration – 25,000 people – to have included in its demands abortion reform. It was referred to as La Marcha de todas las Marchas (the demonstration of all demonstrations).Again, the scope of the march went beyond reproductive rights and brought together 40 different organizations – MILEs being one of them – pushing for citizenship mobilization and participation in a variety of issues: From unions to the environmental, sexual diversity and reproductive rights movement.38 The first demonstration specifically about abortion that brought together a large number of people (approximately 2,000) was that organized in 2013 by Coordinadora Feministas en Lucha.39 These demonstrations on July 25 have taken place every year, gradually increasing in number of participants. The 2018 wave of abortion demonstrations in Argentina and the legislative debate that took place in the neighboring country mobilized Chilean women in even larger numbers, beginning a process that might lead to the strengthening of the campaign for abortion on demand in the near future.This is, however, an ongoing development that lies outside the scope of this study.

The Case of Chile

115

Number of Protests

2.5

Number

2 1.5 1 0.5

17

16

20

15

20

14

20

13

20

12

20

11

20

10

20

09

20

08

20

07

20

06

20

05

20

04

20

03

20

02

20

01

20

20

20

00

0 Year FIGURE 3.1

Number of Street Protests for Abortion Reform in Chile (2000–2017).

Source: By author based on OSAL files and newspaper La Tercera.

Women’s Movements and the Concertación: Tensions and Conflicts This section traces the story of the interaction between women’s organizations and the governments of the Concertación to understand why there has been no collaboration between the specific campaign for abortion reform launched by MILEs and the Bachelet government, even when their positions on the issue and their proposed bills were quite similar. I then delve into the reasons behind this historically conflicting relationship to shed light on why women’s activists have been reluctant to collaborate with left-wing parties in power, why the autonomismo movement was so strong among these circles and how the institutional factors described in the sections above explain these strategic choices. The women’s movement has had a conflictive relationship with the governments of the Concertación throughout the years, particularly on the issue of abortion. Despite the fact that many activists have supported many of these administrations’ policies towards women, there has not been a common strategy between them to advance abortion rights. This can be in part explained by the lack of women’s consensus regarding how to address the issue of abortion, particularly between 1990 and 2010. An example of the weakness of the movement during this period was the failed Sexual Health and Reproductive Rights Forum attempt to gather signatures of people admitting to having had an abortion. Unlike a similar campaign in Uruguay in 2007 that collected 9,000 signatures in only one month, in Chile the Forum could not persuade more than five people to sign (Blofield 2006). In this case, the lack of a clear demand coming from civil society allowed the governments

116 The Case of Chile

of the Concertación to avoid a controversial issue that might break their successful electoral coalition – all without incurring any political costs. However, the causal relationship also worked in the other direction.The highly restrictive political context dissuaded women from launching an ambitious campaign and exacerbated their divisions in goals and strategy. Between the years of 1990 until 2010 a vicious cycle was created that reinforced inactivity within civil society and allowed the Concertación to avoid the topic without repercussions among its constituency. It took the absence of the Concertación from the government in 2010 for this loop to end and create a different context in which civil society and left-wing political parties’ dynamics would take a different form. This section is organized as follows. It first discusses the interactions between women’s civil society organizations and the Concertación administrations between the years after the democratic transition until 2010. Second, it provides an analysis of this relationship from 2010 until the end of the second mandate of President Bachelet (2017).

Post-Democratic Transition (1990–2010): A Weak Movement and an Indifferent Party During the first 20 years after the democratic transition the women’s movement for abortion reform was weak and the few bills that attempted to deal with the total abortion ban were initiated by Socialist and PPD legislators. None of them had input from women’s organizations.The movement did not even organize in response to the introduction of these bills and advocate for them in Congress. In the restrictive political context described above and in the absence of a strong movement behind them, all of these bills advocating for reform failed to pass. Women’s activists fought the government in many areas, not just in the arena of sexual and reproductive rights. Moreover, the relationship was tense both at the institutional and individual level. Conflicts with the women’s ministry, SERNAM and a general lack of collaboration characterized interactions between organizations and individual legislators from the Concertación. President Aylwin (1990–1994) created the National Women’s Service (SERNAM) in 1991 in response to the women’s movement’s demand for a state institution to protect women’s rights (Chuchryk 1994; Waylen 2000; Ríos Tobar 2006; Pieper Mooney 2009).40 SERNAM’S main goal was to promote the participation of women in all spheres of life and to work towards the equality of opportunity between the sexes (Ríos Tobar 2006). Its director had ministerial rank and one of SERNAM’s missions was to evaluate the government’s fulfillment of the CEDAW (Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women). Not surprisingly, the definition of its mission and goals has been a source of political conflict since its creation. Right-wing parties wanted to limit SERNAM’s power and mission, and even the Concertación’s government itself declined to include all the demands of the women’s movement in the institute’s mandate.

The Case of Chile

117

It was born out of a fundamental contradiction: Promoting women’s equal rights while strengthening the traditional patriarchal family (Forstenzer 2017). As a result, SERNAM’s relationship with the women’s movement was strained, to say the least.The institute interacted with women’s civil society organizations, mostly with NGOs, at a technical level but refused to treat them as valid representatives of women (Waylen 2000; Ríos Tobar 2004; Pieper Mooney 2009). In this sense, SERNAM widened the divisions within the women’s movement.The restrictive mission of SERNAM came across as needlessly provocative to some women’s organizations, which prioritized the autonomy of the movement and refused to interact extensively with the state. To be sure, others supported the institute’s policies towards women in agreement with CEDAW commitments. In particular, during these early years SERNAM played no role whatsoever in government policy towards reproductive rights.The government had made the political decision to leave the issue of contraceptives to the minister of health and that SERNAM should not interfere.41 This was also true of abortion. Interactions between women’s organizations and left-wing legislators in Congress were hardly more cordial. In 1991, socialist legislators Adriana Muñoz, Armando Arancibia, Juan Pablo Letelier, Carlos Smok and Carlos Montes introduced a bill in Congress to legalize therapeutic abortion, but women’s organizations did not support this initiative, because they saw it as designed to undercut their momentum.The internal debate between those who perceived this bill as a step on the path towards complete decriminalization and those who saw it as preempting future possibilities for a more liberal policy ended up paralyzing the movement. Moreover, some women opposed the bill because they perceived it as a continuation of patriarchy since the decision to have an abortion was left to the doctor.42 Legislator Muñoz, the only woman among the bill sponsors, was vilified by rightwing legislators, the Catholic Church, the media and even some legislators from the Concertación who rejected the bill because the issue was not on the government’s agenda (Lagos Lira 2001). Muñoz reported that she was left completely isolated and blamed the women’s movement for the failed attempt.43 Another example of the lack of relationship between left-wing parties and women’s organizations took place when right-wing legislator Larraín Fernández (UDI) introduced a bill in Congress to increase penalties for women having abortions by equating abortion with homicide (bill No. 422).The debate took place between 1995 and 1998. There was no participation of women’s organizations specialized in sexual and reproductive rights either in the committee discussions or in the plenary session. The only voice against the bill was that of Dr. María Isabel Matamala, who was at the time the coordinator of the Chilean Association for the UN on Women’s Health and Social Medicine.44 The participation of the women’s movement in this debate was not only reactive but also extremely late. The bill had been introduced in 1994, debated in congressional committees in 1995 and only in 1998 when the full Congress was poised to debate the bill did women’s organizations intervene. A last-minute

118 The Case of Chile

meeting to organize a demonstration opposing the bill was convened but there were no particular efforts to lobby legislators to vote against it. Moreover, activists did not take any initiative to exploit the visibility of the topic in the media.45 A similar indifference towards the bill criminalizing women characterized members of left-wing parties. The Socialist Party was unprepared to defend its position opposing the bill.The general disconnection between women’s organizations and the Socialist Party can be seen in the following incident. An expert on sexual and reproductive rights, recalls how a left-wing senator called a personal friend in the feminist community four days before the debate to solicit her arguments against the bill. A group of feminists then drafted a document, which was sent to the socialist legislators and many others.46 Despite the Senator having a personal friendship with someone within the feminist movement, this did not evolve into any coordinated action but in a last-minute consultation to save the day once the debate took place. In retrospect, one of the main reasons for the lack of collaboration between women’s organizations and left-wing legislators might have been the fact that the bills proposed were too moderate and did not embrace a feminist perspective of advancing women’s autonomy. However, when the first bill legalizing abortion by request was introduced in 2006, there was no collaboration with women’s organizations then, either.The bill was introduced by legislators Marco Enríquez Ominami (PS) and René Alinco (PPD) and was drafted without input from women’s organizations.47 There were two instances of interaction between these legislators and two women’s organizations but that was the extent of it. Corporación Humanas provided Enríquez Ominami with some data to ground the bill.48 Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir contacted the legislators once they introduced the bill to offer its support.49 The legislators and activists planned a joint press conference to present the bill for March 8, 2007, International Women’s Day, but activists recalled that the media ignored their presence: “the media focused on Ominami and rendered us invisible.”50 The bill was soon declared inadmissible for going against the right to life stated in the constitution. No further collaborations took place. During the time that this bill was introduced in Congress, Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir organized annual protests for September 28, the day Latin American feminists have assigned for the struggle for abortion reform. Although the date was chosen to support the demand across Latin America, it did not lend itself to being used as a way to pressure Chilean legislators. The last week of September is a time when legislators are not in Valparaíso, and thus no one was there to engage with women activists.51

Moderate Abortion Reform (2010–2018): Alliances, Co-optation and New Demands As described above, the Concertación lost the presidency for the first time in 2010 and a new wave of social mobilization embraced the country as more women’s

The Case of Chile

119

organizations began to mobilize for abortion reform.The launching of a specific campaign to introduce a bill in Congress opened up opportunities for instances of collaboration with left-wing legislators. Interactions among them increased but were still limited and short-lived due to the characteristics of the Socialist Party, the dynamics of electoral coalitions and the power of the Executive branch within the political system. In April of 2013, MILEs introduced to Congress the first bill proposing abortion reform drafted by civil society organizations. The bill advocated for legal abortion under three circumstances: Risk to life and health; rape; and fetal malformations.52 Many legislators supported this initiative, among them PPD legislators María Antonieta Sáa and Adriana Muñoz, who, having introduced bills in the past on therapeutic abortion, were already committed to this issue. María Antonieta Sáa (deputy from 1994 to 2014) presided over the board of directors of MILEs and, together with Adriana Muñoz, has given press conferences with activists from MILEs.This can be said to be the first collaboration between women’s organizations and politicians in their shared goal of advancing abortion reform. In October 2014, MILEs, together with the Colegio de Matronas y Matrones (Association of Nurses), and MOVILh (Movement for the Integration and Liberation of Homosexuals), went to the presidential palace to hand in 5,000 signatures supporting the decriminalization of abortion under these circumstances.53 In 2014, the electoral program of the Nueva Mayoría (former Concertación) with Bachelet as the presidential candidate included therapeutic abortion for the first time.54 Officials within the administration acknowledged the role of women’s mobilization in the inclusion of abortion in the government’s program, particularly in light of its exclusion in Bachelet’s first mandate. However, they also acknowledged the relevance of changes within the electoral coalition, the work done by women politicians within the parties and Bachelet’s personal experience heading UN women during the last four years as motivating this change of course.55 With a left-wing administration finally including the demand for abortion reform in the government agenda, the time seemed finally propitious for a close collaboration between MILEs activists and government officials. However, this was not the case and tensions began to rise from early on. Feminists from civil society took part of the discussions to draft Nueva Mayoría’s electoral program, but not as full members of the drafting commission.56 In this sense, while feminists tried to push for a more ambitious program around reproductive rights, politicians from the Concertación limited its reach and were the ones who had the final say in shaping those programs.57 Once elected president and in line with her electoral program, President Bachelet introduced a bill in Congress in January 2015 to legalize abortion under the well-known three circumstances: Risk to women’s life; fetal malformations incompatible with life outside the womb; and rape. Given the controversial character of the issue and the needed negotiations within her coalition, the president decided to craft her own bill, instead of advocating for the discussion of MILEs’

120 The Case of Chile

legislation.The drafting of this bill was a closed-door process without any interaction with women’s activists. It was written by experts from SERNAM, the Health Ministry and the presidential office.58 As Claudia Dides, executive director of MILEs, explained in a TV interview in January 2015, It is a pity that this government has been working in an environment of secrecy around this bill, an initiative that actually began in civil society, within women’s and academic organizations and that the government later includes in its agenda.59 The bill proposed by President Bachelet dropped the exception for risk to women’s health present in the original civil society’s bill. This modification is quite significant given that in other Latin American countries such as Colombia and Argentina, the “health clause” has been used to increase access to abortion in the absence of abortion by request (González Vélez 2012; González Vélez and Durán 2008). By adopting the definition of health as “the state of complete physical, mental and social well-being” (WHO), abortions that put mental health at risk could become legal, allowing a more flexible interpretation of these exceptions that might significantly increase access to abortion. Once the Bachelet bill was in Congress, women’s organizations took a larger role.60 The government asked for legal and communication support from the movement and opened up spaces to ask for feedback from civil society.61 However, feminists were critical of the way the government was approaching activists. According to a feminist scholar from the Universidad de Chile, the government was only asking for support for what it had already decided. In her view, the interactions with women’s organizations were intended to communicate the government’s program and to dampen more ambitious demands. She resisted this kind of relationship and demanded the government “treat us as the main union in the country” and “give us agency.”62 Thus, even in the phase in which the interaction was invited, at least some activists saw it more as a public relations ploy than a genuine exchange among equals. While tensions remained high between the Bachelet administration and women’s activists, relations were hardly cordial within the parties of the governing coalition. Despite the fact that Bachelet had negotiated with the Christian Democrats the inclusion of abortion reform in the government program, PDC legislators nevertheless criticized the government’s bill from the start. Some Christian democrats threatened to expel members who would vote in its favor.63 Others stated that the president’s bill went further than what they had previously agreed to with the Executive, since it included a clause acknowledging the women’s right to interrupt a pregnancy.64 Others proposed to vote on each of the three exceptions separately since there was larger consensus on terminating pregnancies that posed a threat to a woman’s life or that involved fetal malformations than those that resulted from rape.The divisions within the PDC put pressure on the

The Case of Chile

121

Bachelet administration to delay voting on the project and the process resulted in many more conflicts than initially expected. During the congressional debates in the Lower Chamber, close to 70 organizations – both for and against the bill – were invited to present in Congress, Claudia Dides, director of MILEs, being one of them. While this was seen overall as a positive step in that Chilean society was for the first time having an open debate about abortion, many women’s organizations, MILEs among them, denounced the process.They insisted that arguments were being constantly repeated and that the extension of civil society participation had simply become a strategy to delay a final vote on the bill.65 On the other side of the debate, those opposed to the proposed elimination to the total ban certainly made themselves heard. Numerous Catholic hospitals publicly stated their opposition to the provision of abortions under any circumstances – despite what the abortion reform might end up stipulating.66 Demonstrations against the reform bill took place in a park across the presidential palace of La Moneda. Protests included women dressed in white carrying white boxes that represented tiny coffins for those killed by abortion and doctors giving ultrasounds to pregnant women in the streets with sound systems that amplified the baby’s heart beats.67 The Catholic Church actively campaigned against the bill. In April of 2015 the National Assembly of Bishops stated that “There is no case in which an abortion heals. It is never therapeutic.”68 Pope Francis directly expressed his worries about the abortion bill in a 2015 meeting with President Bachelet.69 On September 2016, during the ecumenical Te Deum, a religious service for the occasion of the country’s independence (and one with all national authorities present), the Cardinal of Santiago took advantage of President Bachelet’s presence in the audience to denounce the abortion reform.70 Evangelical churches, which have been growing faster and stronger in Chile than in the other neighboring countries, joined the Catholic Church’s criticism of the bill. In September 2016 a joint statement of the Catholic and Anglican Churches rejected the Executive’s bill and members of these Churches handed the government 600,000 signatures against abortion. Pressure, in short, came from both sides. Finally, on March 17, 2016, after many delays, after tensions within the government coalition, after a long, heated and emotional congressional debate, the bill passed in the Lower Chamber by 66 to 44 votes. As the bill arrived in the Senate the role of women’s organizations diminished once again.71 Given the more conservative character of the Upper Chamber, the bill’s chances faded and thus the divisions within the government’s coalition widened. The Bachelet administration needed to carefully control every step of the process to ensure a successful outcome and thus preferred to keep women’s movements away. Negotiations took place exclusively within the government’s coalition, and in these interactions many issues that had nothing to do with abortion reform, such as electoral concerns, took precedence.72 The divisions among the PDC increased and fears of having to pay an electoral price in the municipal elections of 2016 pushed

122 The Case of Chile

them to delay the vote in the Upper Chamber once more.Thus, women activists did not play the same leading role as in the other two countries. One exception to this general trend was the initiative MILEs took together with two other organizations73 to push Bachelet’s government to assign urgency to the discussions of the abortion bill in Congress. In May 2017, when the bill was being delayed in Congress, MILEs reported the Chilean state to the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights. As a result, the government assigned urgency to the bill and it was finally approved in the Senate in July 2017 (Dides and Fernández 2018). Immediately, the right-wing coalition Chile Vamos put together a judicial presentation to the Constitutional Tribunal claiming the law was unconstitutional. Nueva Mayoría legislators criticized right-wing parties for continuously wanting to trump democratic majorities with legal recourses. A similar strategy had been used to reject the morning-after pill in 2008. After listening to more than 135 organizations in what was an exceptionally long and detailed discussion, the Constitutional Tribunal ruled in favor of the law.The Court stated that the unborn has no legal personhood, but expanded the right to object to the practice to institutions and to all those that take part in the abortion, not just medical professionals. As a result, 47.2% of medical personnel declared themselves conscientious objectors to abortions in the case of rape (Corporación Humanas 2018). The passing of this moderate reform reinforced the divisions within the women’s movement. Some organizations such as MILEs went to La Moneda to thank President Bachelet. MILEs director Claudia Dides stated:“We are going to thank this government, the only one that in 28 years was able to present a reform in Congress.”74 Meanwhile, more radical groups such as the Coordinadora Feminista organized their annual demonstration on July 25 in favor of “free abortion,” stating that:“While every day that useless bill adds more and more legal and medical requirements taking away from women even the minimum dignity that we have, we say: enough!”75 In this way they denounced the government’s bill as a move against feminism and as closing the path towards the right to choose.

Conclusion For most of the time period analyzed in this study, Chilean women’s organizations struggled to put together a clear and unified campaign for abortion reform. Lacking a clear demand from civil society, the Concertación administrations were generally able to ignore the issue of abortion – which would have created internal divisions in a successful electoral coalition – without suffering retaliation from their constituencies. This situation began to change in 2010 when institutional reforms, together with the coming to power of a right-wing administration and the emergence of a new wave of social mobilization, created conditions conducive to the organization of a campaign for abortion reform with a clear plan and a bill to introduce in Congress.

The Case of Chile

123

However, the main characteristics of the Socialist Party as an electoralist party that lacks roots in society remained in place, preventing the establishment of a strong collaboration between the newly elected Bachelet administration and women activists. While it was the women’s movement and particularly MILEs that took the initial steps towards including a moderate abortion reform in the societal and political agenda, this process was quickly co-opted by the administration of Michel Bachelet. As described in the previous sections, interaction between the left-wing government and activists was limited to an initial phase of discussion around the electoral platform and some participation in the congressional sessions once the bill was being discussed in Congress. For most of this process the Executive prioritized its electoral goals and consensus within the government coalition and ensured tight control over discussions and negotiations over abortion reform to guarantee the success of its moderate bill. Unfortunately for the women’s movement, this was done at the expense of a more open deliberation and inclusion of abortion reform activists. In the past year, however, new actors both in the political system and in civil society have emerged and might radically change the future of abortion policy. On one hand, radical feminist organizations have increased their presence in the streets and their demands of “free abortion” have reached the societal agenda. In other words, the movement is strengthening. Under the banner “three exceptions are not enough,” feminist activists have taken over the streets of Santiago in an unprecedented number, reaching thousands of attendants according to newspaper reports. The Coordinadora Feministas en Lucha and the Mesa de Acción por el Aborto have been behind many of these events. Furthermore, a new left-wing political coalition – Frente Amplio, in reference to the Uruguayan party – has emerged with significant force to break the bimodal political system in place since the democratic transition. Twelve small left-wing parties, many of which were part of the Nueva Mayoría coalition that took Bachelet to power in 2015, have created this new political space with the goal of transforming Chile’s political system to a participatory democracy. With roots in the student movement, the movement to oppose the private pension system (No+AFP) and the feminist movement, this coalition might be in a position to build a strong alliance with those activists in favor of a more comprehensive abortion reform. For now, this coalition remains a medium-sized force. But its presidential candidate for the 2017 elections, Beatriz Sanchez, won 20.27% of the vote in the first round, only 2% short of Alejandro Guiller, the candidate supported by all the parties of the Nueva Mayoría minus the Christian Democrats. In what might be the beginning of a close collaboration between left-wing legislators and abortion activists, in June of 2018 Frente Amplio legislators introduced a bill for abortion on request in the Chilean congress that has been drafted together with activists from the Mesa de Acción para el aborto.76 Future research should focus on these new developments to test the theoretical model presented in this book and its power to explain this new scenario.

124 The Case of Chile

Notes 1. Interview by author, Santiago de Chile,August 2016. 2. Miles por la Interrupción Legal del Embarazo,Thousands for the Legal Interruption of Pregnancy. 3. Adriana Muñoz is a sociologist and member of the feminist movement as part of the Círculo de Estudios de la Mujer (CEM). She was exiled during the military dictatorship because of her political work among peasants. She was a member of the Socialist Party and since its creation in 1987 of the Partido por la Democracia (PPD). She has been a member of Congress since 1994. 4. María Antonieta Sáa has been part of the feminist movement as part of the Círculo de Estudios de la Mujer (CEM). She was member of the Socialist Party and since its creation in 1987 of the Partido por la Democracia (PPD). She has been a member of Congress since 1994. 5. See La Tercera,“El PPD se recicla: estrena logo y se declara feminista.” May 4, 2018. 6. Interview with Teresa Valdés, Health Ministry, Santiago de Chile,August 5, 2016. 7. Ibid. 8. I use the fourth wave (2005–2009) of the World Values Survey since it is the one that was conducted while the Pink Tide was in place in these three countries. 9. Interview with Teresa Valdés, Health Ministry, Santiago de Chile,August 5, 2016. 10. One of UDI’s pillars is the Catholic doctrine and it is thus committed to defend the Church’s positions on moral issues. 11. Agustin Edwards is the head of the third-most important economic group in Chile with assets in the forest, insurance and banking sectors, and is owner of the newspaper El Mercurio. 12. Ricardo Claro was, until 2008 when he passed away, the owner of media outlets Mega, Diario Financiero and cable company Metropolis, among others. 13. On Christian Education (1885), Declaration on Christian Education (1965), To Teach as Jesus Did (1972), among many others. 14. Database 1990–2018 by author. 15. See La Tercera, “Feminismo chileno vive su revolución mas importante en 40 años.” May 20, 2018. 16. Interview with Marcela Ríos Tobar, Santiago de Chile, November 2, 2007. 17. Interview with Lidia Casas, Santiago de Chile, November 2, 2007. 18. Interview with Marcela Ríos Tobar, Santiago de Chile, November 2, 2007. 19. Interview with feminist activist,Valparaíso, Chile, October 3, 2007. 20. Interview with Lidia Casas, Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago de Chile,August 1, 2016. 21. See Bulletin 8925–11. 22. Interview feminist activist and scholar, Santiago de Chile,August 3, 2016. 23. See the website at www.accionaborto.cl. 24. See www.infoabortochile.org for more information. 25. See www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=lesbianas%20y%20feministas%20chile. 26. Interview with Lidia Casas, Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago de Chile,August 1, 2016. 27. See the document at www.uchile.cl/noticias/110580/mujeres-de-la-u-de-chilepresentaron-manifiesto-sobre-el-aborto. 28. See La Nación,“Médicos apoyan aborto terapéutico.” January, 15, 2003. 29. See La Nación, “Médicos decidirán interrumpir el embarazo” and “Artaza felicita al equipo médico que intervino en el caso de Griselle Rojas.” January 17, 2003. 30. Interview with feminist activist, Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir,Valparaíso, October 31, 2007. 31. See PiensaChile.com, “El presidente del Colegio Médico de Chile y la ley sobre aborto.”January 24, 2015. See Explora Chile, “Que opine la comunidad científica sobre la despenalización del aborto terapéutico?” December 2015. www.explora.cl/

The Case of Chile

32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53.

54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61.

125

blog/2015/02/12/que-opina-la-comunidad-cientifica-sobre-la-despenalizacion-delaborto-terapeutico-1/. See La Tercera, “Grupos de médicos inician ofensiva para evitar aprobación de ley de aborto.” September 16, 2016. See The Guardian,“Abortion Video Tutorial Ads Shock Chile amid Debate on Easing Ban.” May 28, 2015. The media has usually focused on how activists interrupted a religious service and were expelled by police. See, for example, La Tercera,“Desmanes en Catedral por manifestantes pro aborto generan reacciones in twitter.” July 26, 2013. Encuesta Cooperativa Imaginación. www.humanas.cl/?p=16406. The Social Observatory for Latin America (OSAL) has followed protest events in the region from 2000 to 2012. Interview with feminist activist, Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir,Valparaíso, October 31, 2007. See La Tercera,“Intendencia destaca carácter festivo de marcha pese a disturbios aislados al final del recorrido.” March 22, 2014. See La Tercera,“Marcha a favor del aborto libre reunió 2,000 personas.” July 25, 2015. Law No. 19,023, January 3, 1991. Interview with Lidia Casas, Santiago de Chile, November 2, 2007. Interview with member of Corporación Humanas, Santiago de Chile, October 29, 2007. Interview with Lidia Casas, Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago de Chile, November 2, 2007. See Informe de la Comisión de Salud, Bulletin no. 1302–07, June 2, 1998. Interview with member of Corporación Humanas, Santiago de Chile, October 29, 2007. Interview with Lidia Casas, Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago de Chile, November 2, 2007. Interview with PPD legislator, Santiago de Chile, October 2007. Interview with advisor to legislator Marco Enriquez Ominami,Valparaíso, October 31, 2007. Interview with legislator Marco Enríquez Ominami, November 14, 2007. Interview with feminist activist, Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir,Valparaíso, October 31, 2007. Ibid. See Boletín 8925–11. See “Entregan en La Moneda 5 mil firmas para que se legisle la despenalización del aborto en tres causales.” Colegio de Matronas y Matrones, October 2, 2014. https:// colegiodematronas.cl/index.php/2014/10/02/entregan-en-la-moneda-5-mil-firmaspara-que-se-legisle-la-despenalizacion-del-aborto-en-tres-causales/. See Programa de gobierno Michell Bachelet 2014–2018. www.subdere.gov.cl/sala-deprensa/programa-de-gobierno-michelle-bachelet-2014-2018-2. Interview with government official from SERNAM, Santiago de Chile, August 2, 2016. Interview with Teresa Valdés, Santiago de Chile,August 5, 2016. Interview with government official from SERNAM, Santiago de Chile, August 2, 2016. Interview with feminist activist and scholar, Santiago de Chile,August 3, 2016. Interview with Teresa Valdés, Health Ministry, Santiago de Chile,August 5, 2016. Claudia Dides interviewed by CNN Chile, January 19, 2015. www.cnnchile.com/ noticia/2015/01/19/claudia-dides-aseguro-que-existe-secretismo-y-hermetismo-entorno-al-proyecto-de-ley-sobre-aborto. Interview with feminist activist and scholar, Santiago de Chile, August 3, 2016 and Teresa Valdés, Health Ministry, Santiago de Chile,August 5, 2016. Interview with Teresa Valdés, Health Ministry, Santiago de Chile, August, 5 2016 and feminist activist and scholar, Universidad de Chile, Santiago,August 3, 2016.

126 The Case of Chile

62. Interview with feminist activist and scholar, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, August 3, 2016. 63. See La Tercera, “Documento DC sugiere expulsión de parlamentarios que aprueben proyecto de aborto terapéutico.” February 8, 2015. www2.latercera.com/noticia/documento-dc-sugiere-expulsion-de-parlamentarios-que-aprueben-proyecto-de-aborto-terapeutico/. 64. See La Tercera,“La desconocida clausula en el programa de Bachelet que fundamenta el rechazo DC a la interrupción del embarazo.” February 8, 2015. 65. See La Tercera, “Agrupaciones pro aborto apoyan iniciar debate parlamentario.” July 4, 2015. 66. See El Mercurio, “Clínica Universidad de los Andes y Hospital Parroquial de San Bernardo se suman a UC y dicen que no harán abortos.” February 3, 2015. 67. See El Mercurio, “Mujeres protestan contra el aborto frente a la Moneda.” March 20, 2015. 68. See La Tercera,“Iglesia manifiesta posición ante proyecto de aborto.”April 14, 2015. 69. See La Tercera, “Papa Francisco transmitiría a Presidenta Bachelet inquietud por despenalización del aborto.” June 4, 2015. 70. See La Tercera, “Ezzati pide respeto a la vida desde la concepción hasta la muerte.” September 18, 2016. 71. Interview with feminist activist and scholar, Universidad de Chile, Santiago de Chile, August 3, 2016. 72. Interview with feminist activist, Universidad de Chile, Santiago de Chile,August 3, 2016. 73. Fundación Isabel Allende and Center for Reproductive Rights. 74. See La Tercera, “Grupos de mujeres marchan a La Moneda a agradecer a Bachelet por el Proyecto de aborto.”August 21, 2017. 75. See El Desconcierto,“Coordinadora de Feministas en Lucha convoca a 5ta Marcha por Aborto Libre: Las Mujeres abortan en Chile todos los días.” July 18, 2017. www. eldesconcierto.cl/2017/07/18/coordinadora-de-feministas-en-lucha-convoca-a-5tamarcha-por-aborto-libre-mujeres-abortan-en-chile-todos-los-dias/. 76. See La Tercera,“Diputados del Frente Amplio presentan proyecto de aborto libre.” June 18, 2018; La Tercera,“Diputadas de oposición presentan hoy Proyecto de aborto libre.” August 21, 2018.

Bibliography Alemán, Eduardo and Patricio Navia. 2016. “Presidential Power, Legislative Rules and Lawmaking in Chile.” In Eduardo Alemán and George Tsebelis, eds. Legislative Institutions and Lawmaking in Latin America. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Álvarez, Sonia. 1999.“Advocating Feminism:The Latin American Feminist NGO Boom.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 1 (2): 181–209. Álvarez, Sonia, Evelina Dagnino and Arturo Escobar. 1998. Cultures of Politics, Politics of Cultures. Boulder, CO:Westview. Baldéz, Lisa. 2002. Why Women Protest:Women’s Movements in Chile. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blofield, Merike. 2006. The Politics of Moral Sin: Abortion and Divorce in Spain, Chile and Argentina. New York: Routledge. Borland, Elizabeth. 2004. “Cultural Opportunities and Tactical Choices in the Argentine and Chilean Reproductive Rights Movements.” Mobilization 9: 327–329. Brito Pen~a, Alejandra, Beatriz E. Cid Aguayo and Carla Donoso Orellana. 2012. “Ruling the Womb:The Sexual and Reproductive Struggle during the Bachelet Administration.” Latin American Perspectives 39: 145–162.

The Case of Chile

127

Chuchryk, Patricia. 1994. “Feminist Anti-Authoritarian Politics: The Role of Women’s Organizations in the Chilean Transition to Democracy.” In Jane S. Jaquette, ed. The Women’s Movement in Latin America: Participation and Democracy. Boulder, CO:Westview Press. Corporación Humanas. 2018. Implementación de la Ley No 21.030 que regula la despenalización de la interrupción voluntaria del embarazo en tres causales: Objeción de conciencia en hospitals públicos y en instituciones y su impacto en el ejercicio de derechos de las mujeres y niñas. www.humanas.cl/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/HUMANASEstudio-Objeción-Conciencia-Ley-IVE-Tres-Causales-Anexo-Julio-2018.pdf. Crispi, Miguel and Giorgio Jackson. 2014.“Movimientos sociales, participación política y la crisis de las confianzas.” In Angel Flisfisch, ed. Electoras y electores, movimientos, partidos. Santiago de Chile: FLACSO. Dides, Claudia, M. Cristina Benavente and Isabel Saez, eds. 2011. Dinámicas Políticas sobre Aborto en Latinoamérica: Estudio de Casos. Santiago de Chile: FLACSO. Dides, Claudia and Constanza Fernández. 2018. Dossier sobre el aborto en Latinoamérica. Aborto en Chile: avances en derechos humanos. Barcelona: Universidad de Barcelona. Forstenzer, Nicole. 2017. “Feminism and Gender Policies in Post-Dictatorship Chile (1990–2010).” In Sofia Donoso and Marisa Von Bulow, eds. Social Movements in Chile: Organization,Trajectories and Political Consequences. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. González Vélez and Ana Cristina. 2012. “The Health Exception: A Means of Expanding Access to Legal Abortion.” Reproductive Health Matters 20 (40): 22–29. González Vélez,Ana Cristina and Juanita Duran. 2008. Causal salud: interrupción del embarazo, ética y derechos humanos. Montevideo: Mesa por la Vida y la Salud de las Mujeres,Alianza Nacional por el Derecho a Decidir and FLASOG. Haas, Liesl. 2010.Feminist Policymaking in Chile. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press. Haas, Liesl and Merike Blofield. 2005. “Defining a Democracy: Reforming the Laws on Women’s Rights in Chile, 1990–2002.” Latin American Politics and Society 47 (3): 35–68. Hagopian, Frances. 2009. Religious Pluralism, Democracy and the Catholic Church in Latin America. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Lagos Lira, Claudia. 2001. Aborto en Chile. Santiago de Chile: LOM. Lies,William and Mary Fran Malone. 2006.“The Chilean Church: Declining Hegemony.” In Paul Christopher Manuel, Lawrence C. Reardo and Clyde Wilcox, eds. The Catholic Church and the Nation State.Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Llamazares, Ivan and Richard Sandell. 2000. Partidos políticos y dimensiones ideológicas en Argentina, Chile, México y Uruguay. Esbozo de un análisis especial. Mexico: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana de México. Luna, Juan Pablo and David Altman. 2011. “Uprooted but Stable: Chilean Parties and the Concept of Party System Institutionalization.” Latin American Politics and Society 53 (2): 1–53. Mainwaring, Scott. 2018. Party Systems in Latin America. Institutionalization, Decay and Collapse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mainwaring, Scott and Timothy Scully. 1995. Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin America. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. MILEs. 2015. Opinión publica. La mayoría lo pide. www.mileschile.cl. Montecino, Sonia and Josefina Rossetti. 1990. Tramas para un Nuevo destino. Propuestas de la Concertación de Mujeres por la Democracia. Santiago de Chile:Arancibia Hermanos. Moreira, Constanza. 2006. “Party Systems, Political Alternation and Ideology in the South Cone (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay).” Revista Uruguaya de Ciencia Política 2: 1–20. O’Donnell, Guillermo and Philip Schmitter. 1986. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule:Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies. Baltimore, MA: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

128 The Case of Chile

Oxhorn, Philip. 1995. Organizing Civil Society:The Popular Sectors and the Struggle for Democracy in Chile. University Park, PA:The Pennsylvania State University Press. Pieper Mooney, Jadwiga. 2009. The Politics of Motherhood: Maternity and Women’s Rights in Twentieth-Century Chile. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. Pribble, Jennifer. 2013. Welfare and Party Politics in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Posner, Paul. 2004. “Local Democracy and the Transformation of Popular Participation in Chile.” Latin American Politics and Society 46 (3): 55–81. Ríos Tobar, Marcela. 2003.“Chilean Feminism(s) in the 1990s: Paradoxes of an Unfinished Transition.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 5 (2): 256–280. Ríos Tobar, Marcela. 2009. “Feminist Policy Making in Contemporary Chile: From the Democratic Transition to Bachelet.” In Jane S. Jaquette, ed. Feminist Agendas and Democracy in Latin America. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Ríos Tobar, Marcela and Felipe Ajenjo Martínez. 2014. “Evolucion de la participacion social y politica en Chile.” In Angel Flisfisch F., ed. Electoras y electors, movimientos, partidos. Santiago de Chile: FLACSO. Ríos Tobar, Marcela, Lorena Godoy Catalan and Elisabeth Guerrero. 2003. Un nuevo silencio feminista? La transformación de un movimiento social en el Chile posdictadura, Santiago de Chile: CEM. Ríos Tobar, Marcela, Lorena Godoy Catalan, Elisabeth Guerrero and Felipe Ajenjo Martinez. 2014. “Evolución de la participación social y política en Chile.” In Angel Flisfisch, ed. Electoras y electores, movimientos, partidos. Santiago de Chile: FLACSO. Shugart, Mathew and John Carey. 1992. Presidents and Assemblies: Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sigmund, Paul. 1986.“Revolution, Counterrevolution and the Catholic Church in Chile.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 483 (1): 25–35. Siavelis, Peter. 2000. The President and Congress in Post-Authoritarian Chile. Philadelphia, PA: Penn State University Press. Siavelis, Peter. 2016. “Bachelet is Back: Reform Prospects and the Future of Democracy in Chile.” In Georgina Waylen, ed. Gender, Institutions and Change in Bachelet’s Chile. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Smith, Brian. 2014. The Church and Politics in Chile: Challenges to Modern Catholicism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Scully, Timothy. 1995. “Reconstituting party politics in Chile.” In Scott Mainwaring, and Timothy Scully, eds. Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin America. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Somma, Nicolas. 2012. “The Chilean Student Movement of 2011–12: Challenging the Marketization of Education.” Interface: A Journal about Social Movements 4 (2): 296–309. Tartakoff, Laura. 2013.“Continuity in Change: Leftwing Coalitions in Uruguay and Chile.” Global Society 50: 65–72. Valenzuela, Samuel. 1995.“The Origins and Transformations of the Chilean Party System.” Kellogg Institute Working paper 215. Valenzuela, Samuel, Nicolas Somma and Timothy Scully. 2018. “Resilience and Change: The Party System in Redemocratized Chile.” In Scott Mainwaring, ed. Party Systems in Latin America: Institutionalization, Decay and Collapse. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Valdés, Teresa. 2000. De lo social a lo político. La acción de las mujeres latinoamericanas. Santiago de Chile: FLACSO-LOM.

The Case of Chile

129

Waylen, Georgina. 2000. “Gender and Democratic Politics: A Comparative Analysis of Consolidation in Argentina and Chile.” Journal of Latin American Studies 32 (3): 765–793. Waylen, Georgina. 2016. Gender, Institutions and Change in Bachelet’s Chile. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

4 THE CASE OF ARGENTINA Political Indifference, Stasis and Resilience

What reform do you want to pass? Because here in Congress everything passes except abortion.As long as it is not abortion we approve anything. Legislator,Argentina, October 20121

Abortion in Argentina is regulated by Article 86 of the 1921 Criminal Code, which states that the practice is legal only under two circumstances: A risk to the woman’s life or health, and if the pregnancy is a product of rape. Since 2005 women’s organizations have actively challenged this law, launching the campaign for legal, safe and free abortion (from now on the campaign). In 2007, the campaign introduced a bill in Congress calling for the legalization of abortion by request during the first trimester. It took 11 years – until 2018 – for this bill to be discussed in a plenary session. Interestingly, this debate was opened during a Center–Right administration under President Macri (2015–2018), and not during any of the previous three left-wing administrations of Néstor Kirchner (2003–2007) and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2007–2015).The bill passed the Lower Chamber in June 2018, only to be rejected in the Senate in August of the same year.This chapter focuses on the interaction between the campaign and the three Kirchner administrations, the period before the bill was discussed in Congress. Given the relevance of the 2018 congressional debate on the campaign’s bill, these events will be discussed in the Conclusion reflecting on how this book’s theoretical model explains or not the process unveiled throughout 2018. In Chapter 1 I argued that women’s movements for abortion reform establish different interaction patterns with state actors in order to advance their demands, which then lead to different policy outcomes. In the case of Argentina, there has been a growing women’s movement behind the campaign for abortion reform,

The Case of Argentina

131

which has been mostly ignored by both the Executive and Legislative branches during the Kirchner administrations. The reasons for the distant relationship between activists and sympathetic government officials have to do with the fact that at the time the movement was weaker than it is today. But they are also a result of the institutional characteristics of the political system, the unsupportive Executive and the still-powerful Catholic Church. Despite this lack of collaboration with the Executive and Legislative branches, there have been joint initiatives between activists and bureaucrats at both the Health Ministry and the Judicial branch. This outreach, while not leading to legal reform, has in time increased access to abortion on the ground.This chapter will address how these interactions were possible, and will assess the impact they have had on public policy. The first section of the chapter provides an analysis of the Argentine political and institutional context, which effectively prevented the development of a strong relationship between the women’s movement for abortion reform and sympathetic allies in power, and as such prevented the passage of legal abortion. Argentina has a party system undergoing strong de-institutionalization, no strong left-wing party and a powerful Executive branch that has so far been occupied by presidents that oppose abortion reform. The existence of a strong Catholic Church adds another obstacle to the approval of legal abortion.The second section of this chapter provides a history of the women’s movement in Argentina and focuses on the national campaign, assessing the strength of this initiative throughout the period of left-wing governments and beyond. As with previous chapters, the analysis of the abortion rights movement is based on the following indicators: The number of organizations, support of key social actors, media presence and public support and protests. The chapter’s final section analyzes the tense relationship between the movement and the potential allies under a left-leaning government and details the collaboration established with friendly bureaucracies during this period.

Political Context: A Fluid, Unstable and Unpredictable Political System In comparison with Uruguay and Chile, Argentina has had a far more tumultuous political history throughout the twentieth century. With six different military coups between 1930 and 1976, the country did not experience a long period of democratic rule until the 1983 transition to democracy. Since then it has experienced the longest democratic regime in its history, although Argentina has continued to experience more political instability than its neighbors.Two presidents – Raúl Alfonsín in 1989 and Fernando de la Rúa in 2001 – were forced by political and economic crises to abandon their presidential terms prematurely. Nevertheless, Argentina has been able to navigate these recent crises without returning to its tradition of solving problems through military coups – an extraordinary achievement given its twentieth-century experience.

132 The Case of Argentina

As in Uruguay and Chile, distinct institutional features of the Argentine political system set the stage for the women’s struggle for abortion reform. The following sections discuss the characteristics of the party system, left-wing political parties, the presidential powers and preferences and the power of the Catholic Church, describing how these factors prevented a close collaboration between women activists for abortion reform and the sympathetic allies in power.

Party System and Left-Wing Political Parties Unlike the cases of Uruguay and Chile,Argentina’s party system has not emerged from the traditional cleavages present in many Western European countries. Scholars have highlighted the low programmatic character of Argentina’s party system and most agree that traditional categories of Left and Right do not easily apply to Argentina’s political parties (Coppedge 1997; Moreira 2006; Zeichmeister 2006; Murillo and Levitsky 2008; Ostiguy 2009; Kitschelt et al. 2010). In addition, the last 20 years have seen the system move towards de-institutionalization (Gervasoni 2018). The fluidity and complexity of the party system presented social movements with a context difficult to map; women’s movements in particular have found situating and defining the different actors and their interests challenging, to say the least, as the constant flux disguises any clear and stable interlocutors for their demands. At times, the women’s movement has been fractured by multiple and often oppositional party allegiances.These divisions were particularly salient during the kirchnerist years, when the passions for and against President Cristina Fernández polarized the entire country, activist women included.2 According to Mainwaring and Scully, the only cleavage that has generated competing political parties has been the class division between owners and workers. Neither the Church–clerical nor urban–rural cleavages resulted in political parties (Mainwaring and Scully 1995). However, even the existence of a clear class cleavage has been questioned. In their study of the social bases of political parties in Argentina, Lupu and Stokes argue that political parties’ identification with a particular class has not been as clear and constant as expected (2009).The lack of programmatic parties has allowed politicians to redefine their class and ideological allegiances based on pragmatic and electoral calculations and, as such, parties’ ideologies and class identities have shifted throughout the country’s political history. There are, however, some general trends that can be identified in order to shed some light on the Argentine political landscape. From the 1940s until the end of the twentieth century,Argentine politics was dominated by two catch-all political parties: The Unión Cívica Radical (UCR) and the Partido Justicialista (PJ), also known as peronism because of the prominence of its founding figure, former president Juan Domingo Perón (1946–1955 and 1973–1974). The UCR entered politics in 1890 as a multiclass party demanding universal male suffrage and fair elections.At the time, elite-driven parties dominated Argentine politics.Throughout its history, the UCR has defined itself as the party that stands

The Case of Argentina

133

for civil liberties, democracy and human rights. Winning the first presidential elections carried out under the new universal male and secret suffrage law in 1916, the UCR gave rise to a period of one-party dominance that lasted until the emergence of the PJ in the 1940s. On the other hand, the PJ came into existence in 1946 in the context of the rise of the industrial working class, and the subsequent beginning of union organizing and large-scale internal migrations to urban centers. Although not a traditional labor party, the PJ has consistently received a majority of the votes cast by working and lower-income classes, and unions have remained overwhelmingly peronist throughout (Levitsky 2003). As a consequence, after the PJ made its entrance in the 1940s, the UCR received increased support from upper and upper-middle classes. Scholars have historically had a hard time placing the PJ in any category. It has been described as a catchall, multiclass party (Germani 1955), a labor or working-class party (Butler 1969; Canton et al. 1976; Levitsky 2003), or a fascist movement (Romero 1963; Lipset 1981; Halperin Donghi 1995).There is consensus, however, in the fact that peronism embraces an ideological spectrum that goes from the far Right to the far Left. As Moreira puts it,“In Argentina the PJ seems to have absorbed all ideological conflicts into itself disabling the creation of a leftwing party with a mass vocation alternative to the traditional parties” (Moreira 2006: 4). Peronism’s dominance has, in effect, divided the political system with a socio-cultural cleavage between peronism and anti-peronism, which does not necessarily line up with the ideological categories of Left and Right. As Ostiguy (2009) explains, a double political spectrum exists in Argentina: Both peronism and anti-peronism have presence across the Left, Center and Right. In the opposition to peronism, there is the socialist Left, the centrist UCR and the pro-US and pro-market economic Right represented by both military coups and different political parties throughout the years (Ostiguy 2009). In 1995, Mainwaring and Scully included Argentina among those countries with an institutionalized party system. At the time the political system was still defined by bipartidism.The authors did point out, however, that Argentina was not a clear-cut case and highlighted the weaknesses of the Argentine system: Extreme personalism and the parties’ internal low level of organization. After the 2001 political and economic crisis, the weaknesses the authors identified at that time did nothing but deepen.The economic and political developments of those years brought with them the collapse of the UCR, leading to the dominance of the PJ, which won the three subsequent presidential elections in 2003, 2007 and 2011 (Kitschelt et al. 2010; Gervasoni 2018).This shifted the party system to a de facto dominant-party one (Murillo and Levitsky 2008). In light of these recent developments, scholars have categorized Argentina’s party system as one undergoing a pattern of de-institutionalization, expressed through increasing personalization and fluidity (Mainwaring 2018; Gervasoni 2018). Until the 1980s, party labels were the main informational shortcut for citizens to decide who to support. More

134 The Case of Argentina

recently, candidates’ reputations have been the main decisive element for most voters. Politics in Argentina “is talked about largely in terms of personal names: menemismo, kirchnerismo, macrismo” (Gervasoni 2018: 274). In addition, more and more parties have decided to run with new names, avoiding their association with traditional parties such as the PJ and UCR. Within this party system dominated by the logic of peronism versus antiperonism, left-wing parties, the most likely supporters of abortion reform, have been electorally insignificant and characterized by fragmentation, lack of co-operation and high electoral volatility.The Socialist Party, created in 1896, can be considered the oldest left-wing party in the country, but, unlike its counterparts in Chile and Uruguay, it has been historically much weaker electorally at the national level since it has never gained strong support in the countryside.3 At certain historical times, the UCR, self-defined as the party of civil rights, worked as an ally to advance gender politics.This development was the case, for example, during the Alfonsín administration (1983–1989), when a coalition of civil society activists and radical legislators worked jointly to pass equal parental rights and civil divorce. However, the UCR lost significant electoral power after the 2001 crisis and its current alliance with right-wing party PRO (known as Cambiemos) has eroded the possibilities of still maintaining such a role. Finally, the PJ has at times been able to play the part of that strong left-wing party – such as during the recent years of the Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández administrations.At other times, however, the PJ has embodied a right-wing ideology completely opposed to any kind of social mobilization, such as during the Menem era in the 1990s.

Executive Branch and Separation of Powers As in Uruguay and Chile, the Executive branch in Argentina plays a key role in setting the government agenda and formulating policy. The powers presidents are granted both based in the constitution and through informal practices set the conditions under which presidents will be able to influence the congressional agenda and affect the discussion of abortion reform.The power and influence of Argentina’s president lies between that of Chile and Uruguay (Llamazares 2005). The 1994 constitutional reform granted the president the power of total and partial veto, and the power to issue decrees of urgency and necessity. A presidential decree has the immediate force of law and it remains in effect as long as Congress does not pass any new law rejecting it, making these decree powers one of the strongest of the Western world (Negretto 2004). At the same time, the powers of the Argentine president do have some notable limits.The president has no prerogative to issue urgency motions that can force a plenary discussion on a bill or exclusivity to introduce certain topics in Congress as in Chile and Uruguay (Aleman and Tsebelis 2016). Once a bill is in Congress the president has no institutional resources to affect its content or its approval, and needs to rely on the leaders of the party to do so (Calvo and Sagarzazu 2016).

The Case of Argentina

135

However, the decree power can act as a tool for setting the congressional agenda. Executive decrees allow the president to take policy-making away from Congress and, in addition, put pressure on the priority and schedule in which bills are discussed by threatening the passage of a decree (Ferretti 2010). In addition, unwritten practices give presidential initiatives priority over those that were initiated by legislators (Mustapic 2000). Despite the fact that scholars have described the Argentine Congress as more of a veto player than a proactive agenda-setter, there is agreement that legislators remain important actors in the policy process (Jones and Hwang 2005; Llanos 2002; Corrales 2002). The separation of powers, while weak, has not eroded the relevance of Congress in policy-making. While the literature has discussed in detail the role of the president in imposing priorities on the congressional agenda, the Executive’s role in preventing an issue from being placed on this agenda has received considerably less attention. This maneuver can be very effective in channeling the political agenda of the president or, perhaps more subtly, undermining legislation the president opposes.The campaign’s bill for abortion rights during the two administrations of Cristina Fernández offers a good example. She had stated publicly her opposition to abortion and thus some scholars and activists believe that her personal opposition to abortion decriminalization has been one of the main obstacles to the establishment of a close relationship with women’s organizations and passing the reform bill.4 Given that her government has been responsible for the passage of key bills that extended citizenship, such as the laws on marriage equality and gender identity, activists expected abortion decriminalization to follow. However, this has not been the case.While legislators from the kirchnerist party Frente para la Victoria have stated that President Fernández de Kirchne did not explicitly censor the discussion of abortion in Congress, many scholars and activists believe legislators self-censored because they knew introducing a bill in Congress without the support of the Executive makes for an uphill battle.5 In this sense, the weak separation of powers between the Executive and the Legislative prevented sympathetic legislators from introducing the campaign’s bill in the congressional agenda, denying even the possibility of an open discussion in Congress on this issue.

The Power of the Catholic Church Of the three countries studied here, Argentina is situated in a middle position in terms of the power of the Church.The country does not approach the secularism prevalent in Uruguay – either in society or within the state.The self-identification with the Catholic Church and the level of practice is similar to that seen in Chile, but the formal and informal power the Church has over the political system in Argentina is significantly less. In this sense, legislators are more restricted than in Uruguay, but less than in Chile, at least in terms of defining their own position about abortion without the interference of the Catholic Church.

136 The Case of Argentina

While a larger percentage of the population identifies as Catholic – 76% in Argentina compared to 61% in Chile – this can be explained by the larger presence of Protestant churches in Chile and their smaller presence in Argentina.When the Protestant population in Chile is added to those who identify with Catholicism – 17% – the numbers of those affiliated with Christian churches are closer. In terms of those who attend religious services at least once a week, both countries show similar percentages: 22% for Argentina and 27% for Chile, and 28% and 27% respectively never attend (World Values Survey data for 2005–2009).6 Hagopian measures the mobilizational capacity of the Church in society across Latin American countries and ranks the Argentine Church as the lowest within her sample. Her data did not include Uruguay but did include Chile, with a capacity that doubled that of Argentina.7 In terms of the formal relationships between religious and political institutions, Argentina has yet to establish a complete separation between Church and state. In the late 1800s, the liberal elite that ruled the country began the process of removing the Catholic Church from state affairs by passing a law sanctioning secular public education and civil marriage. However, legacies of the colonial times such as the institution of patronage – through which the civil government continued to “suggest” the candidates for bishops and archbishops to the pope – remained in place until 1966. A 1994 constitutional reform further limited the Church’s influence by ending its designation as a “public institution” and eliminating the requirement that the president had to be Catholic. Nevertheless, the Catholic Church continues to have a presence, if not a favored status.The federal government continues to fund the Church, and local governments allocate part of the public budget to support local parishes (Htun 2003). Article 2 of the Argentine Constitution reads that “the state sustains the Roman Catholic worship,” which manifests in the salaries and pensions of priests and bishops. During 2018, in the midst of the debate for abortion reform in Congress, feminists began demanding complete separation of Church and state, denouncing this colonial legacy. Under pressure, the Church decided to renounce to the state’s contribution to its annual budget and it has since been negotiating a gradual withdrawal of these funds.8 A 2018 survey showed that 67% of Argentineans agree that the state should stop financing the Catholic Church.9 Unlike Chile, Argentina has no Catholic-affiliated political parties of relevance,10 denying the Church a direct voice in government. In addition,Argentina has lacked a strong right-wing party throughout most of the twentieth century (Gibson 1996; Morresi and Vommaro 2014). That political space has been filled by the military forces and their recurrent coups – preventing the Church from having a stable interlocutor during democratic times. Neither the PJ nor the UCR has had an official position towards the Catholic Church so the relationship with this institution depended on which leader was in power, and their religious preferences and strategic calculations at each time.11 In the last seven years, the right-wing party PRO has consolidated, offering the Church an ideo-

The Case of Argentina

137

logically closer ally, at least in terms of what it defines as “moral policies.” However, any forthcoming support has hardly been unconditional. In order to win a presidential election, for example, PRO had to come into alliance with the UCR, which meant that this coalition has been divided between conservative and liberal voices on gender policies, evidence of which can be seen in the abortion reform congressional debate of 2018. Moreover, even within PRO there is some critical variation of voices with regard to moral issues (Morresi and Vommaro 2014); in fact, two of the main advocates for legal abortion in the 2018 debate –Daniel Lipovetzky and Silvia Lospennato – were PRO legislators.This is not to say that the Catholic Church has no political allies. But, unlike the Chilean Church, which enjoys an ideological communion with the political and economic elites (Blofield 2006; Giraudy 2015), the Argentine Church relies on alliances informed mostly by strategic calculations based on a cost/benefit analysis of what a confrontation or alliance with the Church might bring to political parties in question. Church pressure on the political system occurs mostly through the Executive branch (Blofield 2006) and through governors of the more socially conservative provinces in the Northwest region of the country.12 Because of Argentine federalism, provincial governors are powerful players in the political system and have a strong hand in shaping national politics. Legislators depend on governors to advance their political careers and thus the latter have a large influence on congressional politics (Jones and Hwang 2005; Calvo and Murillo 2005). The Church, which lobbies through different channels, targets the legislators, too. A 2012 study revealed that more than half of legislators had met with a bishop to discuss political issues in the past year.13 Unlike in Chile and closer to the case of Uruguay, higher education in Argentina has been mostly secular and liberal (Blofield 2006).The presence of the Catholic Church has been strong on the primary and secondary levels but not so much at the university level. The first Catholic universities were Universidad del Salvador and Universidad Católica Argentina (UCA), both founded only in the late 1950s. While they grew stronger throughout the decades, they do not have the same prestige as those in Chile. Other secular Argentine universities fare better. Despite many problems, the Universidad de Buenos Aires continues to be at the top of most rankings (having been deemed the best of Latin America in a ranking of both public and private universities)14 and as such the public university is still chosen by Argentine elites particularly in certain fields such as law and medicine, so relevant to the regulation of abortion. One of the consequences is that the Church is unable to have as much of an impact on Argentine’s ruling class as in Chile. Compared to the roughly 25% of Chilean politicians that have attended Catholic universities, slightly less than 10% of Argentine politicians have been so educated.15 In addition, ultra-orthodox Catholic organizations such as Opus Dei and the Legionaries of Christ are not as significant as in Chile. The Menem administration (1989–1999) did however appoint some Opus Dei members to key positions in the judicial system,16 in line

138 The Case of Argentina

with its anti-choice policies, strategically pursued to prevent criticism from the Church to its neoliberal economic policies. But again, this was more the result of a strategic cost/benefit analysis than of actual ideological conviction.

The Women’s Movement and the Fight for Abortion Reform in Argentina The campaign for abortion reform has been part of a wider national women’s movement that, as in Uruguay and Chile, emerged and developed during the military dictatorships of the 1970s, after a first moment of mobilization in the early twentieth century for women’s suffrage. The history of the women’s movement offers important clues to the philosophical and political roots of the campaign for legal abortion in Argentina. To begin with, Argentina’s women’s movement was influential in eroding the legitimacy of the military dictatorship of the late 1970s, and women activists leveraged that legacy by attempting to continue influencing party politics once the 1983 democratic transition took place. However, as in the other countries, the return of democracy meant political parties took center stage, displacing social movements including women’s organizations. Women’s organizations in Argentina have been active and mobilized to advance women’s rights throughout the democratic period, but divisions about political allegiances and strategies have diminished their political power and impact until very recently. In terms of the movement for abortion rights, a small circle of feminist activists, mostly professionals and belonging to the middle classes, began advocating for reform in the aftermath of the 1983 democratic transition. However, it took the devastating economic and political crisis of 2001 for popular organizations to join in this demand and together launch the campaign in 2005. Since then, the movement for abortion reform has been growing, steadily reaching its height (at least for now) in the year 2018, when demonstrations drew more than 1 million people and succeeded in forcing abortion reform onto the congressional agenda. This section begins by describing the larger women’s movement through the last three decades of the twentieth century and then moves on to analyze the strength of the campaign for legal abortion. It measures this initiative looking at the number of organizations, the support it received from key actors, its media presence, public opinion support and the level of street protests.

The Women’s Movement in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s The second wave of feminism that occurred in the industrialized Northern countries had a parallel expression in the Southern Cone, though the movement differed in the kind of issues and organization that took form during these years. In the 1970s and early 1980s, women’s movements in Argentina were comprised of

The Case of Argentina

139

three different groups: Feminist circles, human rights groups and popular organizations (Feijoo and Nari 1996;Waylen 1994). In the 1970s, the newly born feminist movement was a mix of discussion circles created by professional women not tied to any political organization – autonomous feminism – and feminist branches that emerged within left-wing parties, and organizations – political feminism (Bellucci 2014; Tarducci et al. 2019).17 The main goal of the autonomous groups was consciousness raising and re-education of the self as the first step towards a cultural revolution. The feminist groups within left-wing parties played a different role.Those groups became places to discuss the intersections between the class struggle and the oppression of women, and thereby differentiated themselves from the second wave of feminism in the Northern industrialized countries, which earned the reputation for fostering bourgeois organizations (Tarducci et al. 2019). The legalization of abortion was part of these two Argentine groups’ platforms, more so with the autonomous feminist groups than those within the political parties. However, in the context of the political turmoil of the early 1970s, repressive sexual and reproductive rights policies combined with the political weakness of these groups to prevent them from advancing abortion rights beyond internal discussions (Bianco 2000).As the military came into power through a coup in 1976, the persecution and torture of all those opposed to the “Christian Western and capitalist society” became the norm. Left-wing parties, movements and unions were the main targets. Restrictions to sexual and reproductive rights continued and were justified as a matter of national security – the deserted areas of the country should be populated since they represented a geopolitical weakness.18 Some of the activists had to leave the country to escape persecution and in their years in exile they came in touch with the burgeoning feminist movement flourishing in Northern countries.That was the case of Dora Coledesky, who spent her exile in France and who became very significant in the early efforts to legalize abortion.19 Likewise with Marta Alanis, who was forced to leave the country due to her political activities – and later became the director of the local chapter of Catholics for the Right to Choose. Other feminists who remained in Argentina continued meeting in private in their houses to discuss gender issues, since this was the only political activity they were allowed to perform under the deadly political repression of the military regime (Bonder 1989).20 Then, in what was a turning point in the history of the Argentine dictatorship, a group of women decided to challenge the regime in the public arena. In 1977, a group of 14 mothers met in Buenos Aires’ main square – Plaza de Mayo – to demand information from the government about the fate of their disappeared children, victims of the regime’s repression.They were the founders of what would be one of the strongest Latin American human rights groups, the Madres de Plaza de Mayo.They were the first to openly oppose the military government, and they played an important role in eroding the legitimacy of the regime within the country and abroad. While they did not define themselves as

140 The Case of Argentina

feminists at the time – they have done so only more recently – they redefined the notion of motherhood as deeply political (Bouvard 1993), opening up new spaces for women activism that eventually embraced abortion reform. The early 1980s brought forward a third group of women, this one linked to the needs of working-class neighborhoods hit by the deep economic crisis that swept the region at the beginning of the decade (Feijoo and Nari 1996;Waylen 1994). Lower-middle-class housewives organized shopping strikes against inflation, and then broadened their demands to pensions, child care centers, divorce and birth control (Fisher 1993). The military dictatorship ended abruptly in 1983 after the defeat in the Malvinas/Falklands War against the UK.While women’s movements, particularly the Madres, were influential in challenging the legitimacy of the military regime and contributing to its collapse, they had less influence over the transition and beyond (Feijoo and Nari 1996). The fast pace of the Argentine transition made it harder for movements to organize and establish themselves as influential going forward (Waylen 1994 and 2000). Notwithstanding their smaller role in the democratic transition, women were eager to take part in the newly democratic government. In 1983, women activists created the Multisectorial de la Mujer, an umbrella organization that attracted both organized and independent women from different backgrounds, with the goal of introducing gender issues into the political agenda (Bonder 1989; Borland 2010; Tarducci et al. 2019). Their first mobilization took place on International Women’s Day in 1984, when they presented the government with a list of demands related to women’s issues. Unlike the case of Uruguay and similar to that of Chile, the demands were very moderate and dealt mostly with gender equality in the political system and the work place.The decriminalization of abortion was not among them, given the internal differences around this issue (Bonder 1989).21 The demand for abortion reform was, however, present in the March 8 demonstrations embraced by some feminist groups with chants pushing for the end to clandestine abortions (Tarducci et al. 2019). A key development within the women’s movement in the first years after democratization was the creation in 1986 of the Encuentro Nacional de Mujeres (National Meeting of Women) (Maffía et al. 2013; Aszkenazi 2007; Sutton and Borland 2013; Tarducci et al. 2019). Inspired by the Latin American and Caribbean feminist Encuentros launched in 1981, this has been a unique experience throughout the world and a very successful one; annual meetings held since then have continued to attract a growing number of participants.The goal behind this initiative has been to encourage interaction and connections among all kinds of women’s organizations focused on a variety of struggles that affect women, from domestic violence to reproductive rights, from labor discrimination to sexual identity. Over three days women get together and choose to participate in approximately 40 workshops arranged by topic. After debating the issue in each workshop, the conclusions are presented in a final plenary session. If there is no consensus on

The Case of Argentina

141

them, a majority and a minority opinion are included in the conclusions of each annual meeting (Chejter et al. 2002; Sutton and Borland 2013). These instances have been a key element in the organization of the women’s movement at a national level, and was the space within which the campaign for the legalization of abortion was born (Alma and Lorenzo 2009). The 1990s offered a mixed bag for women’s movements. On one hand, the international arena with the Cairo and Beijing UN conferences encouraged women’s activism and increased the funding available from international co-operation.The institutionalization and NGOization of the movement took place (Álvarez 1999), though later and less extensively than in Chile (Di Marco 2011). The domestic political context was, on the other hand, highly restrictive with regard to gender issues, particularly reproductive rights. President Carlos Menem took power in 1989, and his government took a surprising right turn in both economic and moral policies. A clear alignment with the Vatican’s anti-choice views ensured Menem the support of the Catholic Church despite the administration’s brutal neoliberal policies that left a legacy of increased inequality and unemployment. The policies would have been otherwise criticized more harshly by the bishops. The only positive step towards advancing women’s rights was the passing of a 30% gender quota. This law was the result of women’s mobilization and surprisingly received strong support from the president, which ensured its passing (Waylen 2000).This measure increased women’s representation significantly, though it was not without its negatives. In a way, the opening of new opportunities for women in politics exacerbated the tensions already seen in the neighboring countries between autonomous feminists and those who were part of political parties and government (Waylen 2000). The demand for the right to abortion was present from the beginning of the democratic transition in 1983 among some of the feminist groups (Domínguez 2004; Petracci and Ramos 2006). However, given disagreements about this issue in the wider women’s movement, particularly during the 1990s, the movement chose to privilege less controversial demands such as that of sexual education and access to contraception to avoid losing support for their broader struggle (Gutiérrez 2000; Rouco Peréz and Schejter 1995; Bianco 2000). Following the return of democracy in 1983, some women’s organizations included abortion reform in their agenda.22 But they were few in number and their initiatives did not attract masses of demonstrators or the attention of the media as they do today. However, they laid the ground for what became the national campaign for legal abortion in 2003. Many of the same women that founded these initial groups became key actors within the campaign.23 These organizations were mostly composed of professional middle-class women who had been active in feminist discussion circles during the time of the dictatorship. In 1988, feminists launched the Comisión por el Derecho al Aborto (Commission for the Right to Abortion) to introduce the issue of abortion in the media, organize workshops and bring the issue to Congress (Chejter et al. 2002;

142 The Case of Argentina

Rouco Peréz and Schejter 1995).24 In 1989, Catholics for the Right to Choose opened a local chapter in Buenos Aires to raise consciousness among women about sexual and reproductive rights and publish reports on these issues (Vasallo 2005; Chejter et al. 2002). In 1990, a group composed mostly of feminist professionals who attended the 1990 Women’s Health Conference at Manila formed the Foro de Derechos Reproductivos (Forum for Reproductive Rights), aimed at spreading information on these issues within academic and professional circles.25 That same year these organizations participated in the Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Meeting in San Bernardo, Argentina, where they launched the September 28 campaign for legal, free and safe abortion in the region. Finally, MADEL (Mujeres Autoconvocadas para Decidir en Libertad)26 was created in 1994 to oppose the alliance of the Menem administration with the Vatican in all matters of sexual and reproductive rights.This group’s main achievement was to prevent the inclusion of the clause on the right to life from the moment of conception in the 1994 Constitutional Convention (Gutiérrez et al. 1998; Checa and Rosenberg 1996; Gutiérrez 2000).

The Campaign for Legal, Safe and Free Abortion Prior to the 2000s, the issue of abortion reform mobilized mostly middle and upper-middle classes and professional feminists.The events of 2001 changed this. The economic and political crisis of that year prompted a large wave of mobilization among lower and middle classes.To move from a reactive oppositional phase to a proactive stage, the mobilized citizens organized in neighborhood assemblies, and their movement spread rapidly through the capital and main cities. Within this movement women activists created the Assembly for the Right to Abortion (Bellucci 2014). It was in this space that activists came up with the idea of organizing a workshop on strategies to legalize abortion in the 2003 National Women’s Encuentro in the city of Rosario. Until that time, abortion had been present in the Encuentros but the discussion always revolved around the morality of the practice, preventing any development of specific strategies for policy change.This changed in 2003 with the organization of this workshop for those who already agreed on the need to legalize abortion.This was the first step towards the launching of the national campaign for legal abortion. Scholars and activists alike believe that the 2001 mobilizations were a turning point for the struggle for abortion rights (Di Marco 2011).27 The context of general mobilization brought feminist groups in touch with women from popular sectors, creating a cross-class alliance that strengthened the movement for abortion reform as never before (Borland 2010). On May 28 of 2005, the International Day of Action for Women’s Health, women activists launched the campaign for free, safe and legal abortion, the most important coalition for abortion rights ever created in the country. The main demands coalesced into a rallying cry: Educación sexual para decidir, anticonceptivos para no abortar, aborto legal para no morir (Sexual education to decide, contraception

The Case of Argentina

143

so as not to have to resort to an abortion, legal abortion so as not to die).Their goals were to introduce abortion to the social and political agenda, expand the number of women and organizations that supported abortion reform and achieve a law that legalized abortion in the country.28 Throughout 2006 activists worked on drafting a bill to propose legal abortion, and on May 28, 2007, the campaign introduced it in Congress for the first time. The bill was a collective enterprise discussed in assemblies around the country among all the members of the different organizations.29 It proposed the right to a safe, legal and free abortion during the first trimester, and later in the pregnancy, in cases of risk to the mothers’ health, fetal malformations and rape. The campaign was mostly built in the streets and through alliances with other key social actors in that it was a grassroots campaign built from the bottom and implemented through community organizing in every corner of the country. The large demonstrations and street activities made the issue of abortion visible, and allowed activists to introduce it to the societal and political agenda. It was only when demonstrations became significant and the bill was introduced to the congressional agenda in 2018 that the mainstream media began larger coverage of the movement.This was a victory that belonged to the country’s women – in every sense of the word. The campaign has reached a level of strength unseen in most of the other Latin American countries. However, this did not happen until 2017/2018, which is outside the period of left-wing governments in power studied here. Had this strength been reached earlier, the relationship between activists and the leftwing government would have probably been different. The campaign was only launched in 2005 and as such it needed time to grow. Its initial strength relied on its democratic organization, its grassroots component, its federalism and the support of key social actors such as other social movements and unions. However, in those early years, it still needed to engage larger support from professional communities such as lawyers and doctors and widen their media strategy to become more visible.These steps were taken later and explain the exponential growth the campaign experienced during the years of 2017 and 2018.

Number of Organizations In its early years the campaign reunited approximately 300 organizations including women’s groups, unions, cultural movements, networks of peasants, educators, health professionals and human rights organizations. More than 500 organizations take part in it today.The campaign has presence in all the country’s 24 provinces and as such is defined as a federal movement providing a national platform for activists across Argentina. As activist Martha Rosenberg puts it:“The campaign is federal because it was born within the National Women’s Encuentros” (Bellucci 2014: 465). Following also the model of the Encuentros, the campaign has been built through a horizontal process and aspires to be highly democratic.There are

144 The Case of Argentina

spaces for debate at the provincial, regional and national level.30 There is an annual plenary session where all the organizations come together to discuss the status of abortion reform, strategies, tactics and the drafting of the bill.31

Support of Key Social Actors The campaign developed a clear strategy to broaden the coalition of social actors in favor of abortion reform. In their search for allies, activists received support from other relevant social movements such as human rights,32 the Piqueteros (unemployed workers), worker-run factories, students and LGBT movements.33 In 2010 the biggest public university, the Universidad de Buenos Aires, expressed its support.34 In 2011 a few progressive religious denominations such as the Methodist and Lutheran Churches and the Jewish community Bet el also expressed their solidarity with the campaign’s goals.35 To be sure, other significant actors such as unions, lawyers and doctors’ associations took longer to embrace the campaign. When they did, support came only from certain groups within these associations and hardly in a unanimous way, generating strong tensions and divisions within them. Unions in Argentina offer a good example. Unions have been divided into two main groups since the implementation of a neoliberal economic plan in the early 1990s.The Workers General Confederation (Confederación General del Trabajo, CGT), the most conservative branch, has until very recently opposed the legalization of abortion. Only in the context of the large mobilizations and the debate of the campaign’s bill in Congress in 2018 did it release a document stating that it refrained from taking an institutional position on this issue given that it respected the personal convictions and beliefs of each of its members.36 The Argentine Workers Confederation (Confederación de Trabajadores de la Argentina, CTA), the more progressive branch that left the CGT in 1992 to express its discontent with the union’s lack of criticism of neoliberalism, stated its support for the campaign as early as 1999.While initially this was more a formal declaration without real commitment (Chejter et al. 2002), beginning in 2009 the CTA began to actively participate in street actions with the campaign through the members of its Secretariat on Gender and Equal Opportunities.37 Lawyers, too, have been divided on the issue of abortion. In 2002 and again in 2018 the National Academy of Law and Social Sciences from Buenos Aires drafted a document stating that the bills introduced to ensure the practice of legal abortions were unconstitutional.The rationale was that the National Constitution guarantees the right to life from the moment of conception through the incorporation of the Human Rights Treaty of San José de Costa Rica as part of this foundational document since 1994.38 On the other hand, in July 2010 the Lawyers’ Association of Buenos Aires expressed its support for the legalization of abortion.39 Finally, medical associations and schools have traditionally opposed the decriminalization of abortion. In 1994 the Academy of Medicine expressed its support for

The Case of Argentina

145

the Menem administration’s attempt to include the right to life from the moment of conception in the constitution (Gutiérrez 2000). Recently more doctors have pronounced themselves in favor of the legalization of abortion through the creation of the Red de Profesionales de la Salud por el Derecho a Decidir (Network of Health Professionals for the Right to Choose).40 But no professional association or medical school has officially supported it yet. When in August 2010 the University of Buenos Aires expressed its institutional support for the campaign for the right to a legal, safe and free abortion, the only dean that did not vote for this resolution was Alfredo Buzzi of the School of Medicine.41 When a similar stance took place in the Universidad de la Plata, the dean of the School of Medicine expressed that “la cuestión ya esta resuelta en la génesis del juramento … que se refiere a la obligación de mantener absoluto respeto por la vida humana desde su concepción” (“the issue is already solved in our pledge … which refers to our obligation of maintaining absolute respect for human life since the moment of conception”).42 To this day, medical schools’ curricula do not include the teaching of how to perform an abortion, despite the fact there are cases in which abortions are not only deemed legal, but in fact need to be provided.The only exception is that of the Universidad Nacional de Rosario, which since 2017 has been offering an elective course on abortion, and as a result has faced extensive protests calling for the closure of the course (Alcaraz 2019). Doctors have so far been the most reluctant actors to express support for the campaign’s bill. In light of the relevance doctors had in the Uruguay case, this lack of commitment from the majority of the medical community to the right to abortion has weakened the campaign’s argument that illegal abortions constitute a public health crisis.

Media Presence Until the recent explosion of the “Green Tide”43 with the large mobilizations and the congressional debate that took place in 2018, the campaign lacked an extensive media presence and strategy.Through the years of our focus, when the left was in power (2003–2015), the campaign set a goal of raising consciousness about the need for legal abortion in Argentine society, but this was done more through street actions that through media campaigns. Its presence in the media took the form of open letters in the newspapers. The coverage that the media decided to give to its main demonstrations and activities was uneven and driven mostly by sensationalism.Activists recall that when they launched the campaign in 2005 they organized a press conference. One journalist showed up (Alcaraz 2019). To gain visibility, the campaign designed an icon:A green scarf (pañuelo), which in 2005 took the current shape with the drawing of a green ribbon and the main slogan: “Sexual education to decide, contraception so as not to have an abortion, legal abortion so as not to die” (Sutton and Vacarezza 2018).The green scarf grew in popularity until its explosion in 2018. Since February of that year, when the movement mobilized strongly to force the discussion of its bill in Congress,

146 The Case of Argentina

activists organized pañuelazos, demonstrations in which all participants raise their green scarves in the air. Green scarves began to appear on wrists, around necks and on backpacks. And, perhaps most importantly, women everywhere rocked them – from actresses on prime-time television shows and awards ceremonies to teenage students at school.This icon is now immediately recognized as a symbol of abortion reform; however, again, this was not yet the case in the early period studied here, but in the recent mega-mobilization of 2018. Prior to 2018, the coverage in the print media was uneven. Some papers, not surprisingly mostly on the Left, had been following the campaign closely from early on.The left-wing newspaper Página 12 is a good example. Feminist activist and journalist Mariana Carbajal has been reporting on the campaign since its beginnings. This newspaper publishes a weekly special section called “Las 12,” which is run by feminist journalists, and as such has become another space where the campaign has been able to voice its demands and opinions. However, more mainstream newspapers such as Clarín have not covered their activities.Throughout the years, their discussion of the issue of abortion has been mostly sparked by the tragic cases of minors or disabled women being forced to carry pregnancies after being raped, or the sensationalist confrontations between naked feminists and Church members in the demonstrations at the Annual National Women’s Encuentros.44 A 2008 study of the media coverage of abortion finds that with the exception of Página 12, which is the only newspaper that openly favors legalization, most newspapers presented a very restrictive view of abortion in which the main source of information was the Catholic Church (Artemisa 2008). This changed only in 2018 when the coverage of news on abortion in Clarín went from an average of 35 articles from 1997 to 2017, to a high of 678 articles in 2018 alone.45 When the bill was debated in Congress all newspapers followed the street demonstrations and legislative discussions very closely, but again, this was not the case in previous years. Similarly, the campaign had a minimal presence on TV before 2018. From that point forward and due to the campaign’s decision to force the discussion in Congress, media coverage increased exponentially.The topic of abortion seeped into mainstream media.The tabloid program “Intrusos,” for example, hosted five shows dedicated to discussing feminism and the legalization of abortion, a 180-degree shift for a show mostly known for its reports on the lives of the rich and famous. In addition, in an effort to raise support for reform while the bill was being debated in Congress, a group of actresses launched a series of television ads telling real stories of women that died due to clandestine abortions.46

Public Opinion Support There has not been a consistent way of measuring public opinion support for the legalization of abortion under certain circumstances and based on women’s demand.This makes the analysis of the evolution of public opinion quite difficult.

The Case of Argentina

147

Gathering data from different surveys (with different samples and slightly different questions) it is possible to see there is large support for the existing 1921 law. Public opinion surveys registered that support for legal abortion in cases of rape has been close to 70% since 2001.47 In terms of the legalization of abortion on demand, support grew throughout the years. In 2001 Mori found that only 24% of the population supported this position. In 2012, Ibobarometro found this percentage had risen to 58%, which corresponds to the time of the Fernández de Kirchner government studied here. More recent polls conducted in 2018 in the context of the congressional debate found that the percentage has remained stable, between 53 and 62% depending on which survey we use.48 While it is not possible to state that the increase in public opinion support was due solely to the campaign for abortion reform, it is undeniable the movement played a part in this change.The expansion of support coincides temporally with the launching and growth of the campaign, which also happened to be the only operative pro-legalization force at the time.

Street Protests Street activism has been the campaign’s main strategy to raise awareness and put pressure on the political system. From the early years of the campaign, activists held annual demonstrations and street activities throughout the country on the occasion of the following dates: International Women’s Day (March 8), Day of Action for Women’s Health (May 28), International Day of Action for Abortion Access (September 28) and at the closing of the National Women’s Encuentros, usually held on a long weekend in the second half of the year. Since 2005, when the campaign was launched, the numbers of both the demonstrations and participants have increased (see Figure 4.1). The marches in the National Women’s Encuentros attracted around 10,000 women at the beginning of the new millennium, and reached from 30,000 to 70,000 in the last five years, depending on the location.49 The demonstration for March 8, 2018 included 500,000 people.50

Political Indifference: A Challenging Political Context for Civil Society–Government Collaboration This section tells the story of the interaction between feminist activists and government officials and how it affected the struggle to achieve abortion reform. The lack of a strong collaboration between activists and legislators resulted from the movement not having reached its maximum strength during this period, the absence of a strong left-wing party with roots in society, the lack of institutionalization of the party system, opposition from both Pink Tide presidents to the inclusion of abortion as part of their government program and a still-influential Catholic Church. The abortion rights movement faced a challenging political context with no support from either the Executive or the Legislative branches.

148 The Case of Argentina

Number of protests

25

Number

20 15 10 5

18

17

20

16

20

15

20

14

20

13

20

12

20

11

20

10

20

09

20

08

20

07

20

06

20

05

20

04

20

03

20

02

20

20

20

01

0 Year FIGURE 4.1

Number of Street Protests for Abortion Reform in Argentina (2001–2018).

Source: Figure by author based on OSAL files and newspapers Clarín and Página 12.

This context understandably generated feelings of mistrust towards the political system. As such, the movement was for the most part reluctant to design a clear strategy of collaboration with the government. Only in 2011 did activists create a lobbying commission to engage with legislators in the Lower Chamber and advocate for reform. In addition, the initial weaknesses of the campaign in the early years of the Kirchner and Fernández de Kirchner administrations implied that the main political parties did not see any electoral gain in embracing the activists’ agenda and in fact considered reaching out to feminist activists to be a major risk.These factors combine to explain the lack of collaboration between activists and the kirchnerist administrations, resulting in a lack of progress in abortion reform in this period. In the absence of a strong collaboration to advance legal change in the regulation of abortion, there was, however, some gain in a low-profile relationship between reproductive rights activists and bureaucrats and technocrats from the Health Ministry and the Judiciary.The fact that these administrations had a progressive perspective in terms of human rights suggests that many of the bureaucrats and appointed Supreme Court judges held positions closer to those viewpoints common in the women’s movement.These collaborations had a positive impact in significantly increasing access to abortion within the existing legal framework – despite the lack of policy change. This section narrates and analyzes the events that explain the little interaction and collaboration developed between women activists and left wing politicians

The Case of Argentina

149

during the Kirchner and Fernández de Kirchner administrations (2007–2015). In 2015 the Kirchner political project came to its end when Mauricio Macri won the presidential election as the leader of the Center-Right coalition Cambiemos (2015–2019).A series of events that took place throughout these four years modified the value of some of the key variables identified here, making the debate of the campaign’s bill possible in 2018. Given that these events are beyond the scope of this study, an analysis of the events that developed throughout 2018 will be presented in the Conclusion.

Early Experiences (1980s–1990s) The weakness of the movement for abortion reform, combined with the lack of a strong left-wing party and the low institutionalization of the party system, prevented the establishment of a strong collaboration between activists and government officials before 2018. As noted in the previous sections, the movement for legal abortion launched a campaign of national reach in 2005, growing in strength only in 2017/2018, making the initial efforts to pass legislation relatively easy to ignore by the political system. In addition, the party system didn’t offer the abortion rights movement a clear ally. Left-wing parties sympathetic to abortion reform were too weak to insert the issue in the government agenda. The stronger parties such as UCR and PJ were too ideologically heterogeneous to agree on a position on abortion reform and push it forward. Under these less-than-ideal conditions there were, however, initial attempts to establish alliances between activists and legislators. In 1992, for example, members of the Comisión por el aborto met with socialist and radical legislators and together drafted the first bill proposing to grant women abortion on demand (Melucci 2009).51 Three other bills followed after this 1992 attempt supported by legislators of these same parties but none of these were ever included in the congressional agenda. Those left-wing parties that were available and sympathetic, such as the Socialist Party and the Movement for Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo, MAS) were electorally weak.They had very small representation in Congress throughout the years and were never elected to the Executive branch, rendering them insignificant and unable to impose such a controversial issue on the congressional agenda. On the other hand, strong political parties that could have had enough power to push bills through Congress, such as the UCR and the PJ, were ideologically heterogeneous and as such fluctuating and unreliable for the movement.The low institutionalization of the party system has meant that the main political parties are not aligned along an ideological continuum.Those within the UCR who supported the issue and interacted with the women’s activists were most of the times female legislators with a strong commitment to reform but with no support from their party to push the issue forward. Meanwhile, within the PJ, President Menem (1989–1999) made clear his opposition

150 The Case of Argentina

to abortion reform. In an attempt to avoid the Church’s criticism for the social impact of his neoliberal economic policies, Menem put in place a close alignment with the Vatican ensuring that reproductive rights in general, let alone abortion reform, could not be advanced. Within peronism the person who occupies the presidency leads the party, conflating party and government structures (Gervasoni 2018), meaning that there was no room for members of the party to propose an alternative policy on this issue. Despite the restrictive conditions, there was one successful experience of collaboration between women activists and progressive legislators during the 1990s. In 1994, in the context of a Constitutional Convention and in order to signal to the Catholic Church his commitment to Catholic values, President Menem proposed introducing into the Constitution an article that would protect life from the moment of conception. This attempt by the government produced an immediate reaction among women activists, who quickly came together and created MADEL (Mujeres autoconvocadas para decidir en libertad, Self-organized women to decide freely).The main goal of this organization was purely reactionary: To prevent the passage of this legislation in the Constitutional Convention. In this context, activists worked together with sympathetic representatives to the Convention, mostly from the opposition parties, to prevent the passing of this proposal. They achieved their goal. The fact that in 1991 Congress had passed a gender quota law meant that close to 26% of the Constitutional Convention was female, increasing the possibility of finding sympathetic allies to oppose such a move (Pecheny 2011).The reasons for this successful collaboration? First, this was a reaction to a proposal to restrict reproductive rights even more, not to advance protection for these rights. Second was the exceptional venue, i.e., the Constitutional Convention. Attempts to continue this collaboration followed, particularly around a 1995 bill on sexual and reproductive health, but they were met with obstacles both at the level of the movement and at the institutional level. Although this 1995 bill passed in the Lower Chamber it later died in the Senate and towards 1997 MADEL disintegrated. In this new phase, in which the fight moved from opposing a government measure to proposing a new policy on sexual and reproductive rights, disagreements around strategies and the inclusion or not of abortion brought the experience of MADEL to an end (Gutiérrez 2000; Alcaraz 2019). Similarly, on the institutional side of the equation, the lack of a clear and strong interlocutor in Congress with whom to work further prevented the advancement of this bill.

Néstor Kirchner Administration (2003–2007): High Expectations in a Promising Political Context The coming to power in 2003 of Néstor Kirchner from the left-wing branch of the PJ Frente para la Victoria showed once more the ideological heterogeneity within peronism and how disconcerting and divisive this can be for social movement

The Case of Argentina

151

activists. Reversing most of Menem’s neoliberal economic policies, Kirchner also extended this policy change to other areas such as human rights, social policies and foreign policy, laying the ground for a progressive administration in line with the Pink Tide prevalent in Latin America at the time. Kirchner won the first presidential elections after the 2001 economic and political crisis hit and a large wave of mobilization forced the resignation of former president Fernando de la Rúa (UCR, 1999–2001). Kirchner was a savvy politician and knew that attending to social movements’ demands and strengthening his government with their support was key to a successful administration in this particularly conflictive context in which all political institutions and leaderships were mistrusted and challenged. Once in power, he addressed many of the demands of the 2001 uprising, such as the impeachment of Supreme Court judges appointed by Menem who lacked independence from the Executive branch and the implementation of institutional reforms to increase the transparency of the political system. Kirchner also approached two strong social movements: That of human rights demanding accountability for abuses during the military dictatorship, and that of unemployed workers (piqueteros) who had been blocking traffic in main access to the capital city to demand government subsidies. Kirchner embraced their demands in exchange for electoral support, trust and legitimacy, which most politicians and parties did not have at the time. Human rights became the core of his government and of the political project he began to build together with his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. President Kirchner also took important steps that signaled his willingness to at least entertain the possibility of eventual abortion reform. At the beginning of 2004 and in line with his commitment to renew the Supreme Court, Kirchner proposed the nomination of Carmen Argibay to one of the vacant seats.Argibay’s public statements identifying herself as an atheist and in support of the legalization of abortion generated strong opposition to her nomination from conservative and religious groups. In the midst of this debate, Pope John Paul II and local bishops asked President Kirchner to state his opposition to abortion, as had been done by his predecessor Carlos Menem.52 Kirchner’s chief of staff and foreign minister both responded that the legalization of abortion was not on the government agenda. Despite the strong lobby of the Catholic Church against Carmen Argibay, Congress approved her candidacy in July 2004, and she became the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court during democratic times. In November 2004, a second incident returned abortion to the public eye. President Kirchner’s health minister Ginés González García stated in an interview with the newspaper Página 12 that the decriminalization of abortion would save many lives.This was the first time that such a statement had come from the Executive branch. Confronted by the Catholic Church and the media, President Kirchner told the press he was not going to legalize abortion but at the same time rejected pressures to force González García’s resignation.53 Both instances showed Kirchner’s ambivalence on the issue of abortion.While he publicly denied that his

152 The Case of Argentina

administration intended to include the legalization of abortion on his agenda, he nevertheless appointed ministers and judges who held a strong position in favor of this reform. In the case of González García, for example, it was unclear at the time if his public statements had been spontaneous and merely at the personal level or part of a government strategy to test the waters and social reaction to a possible future plan to support the legalization of abortion. With a progressive government in power for the first time in more than a decade and the above-noted subtle signals in favor of abortion reform, women activists raised their hopes that this might be the time for the legalization of abortion to finally take place. After approximately two years of planning, women activists took advantage of this political opening, and on May 28, 2005, the International Day for Women’s Health, launched the campaign for legal abortion.The campaign presented to Congress more than 10,000 signatures supporting the legalization of abortion and its inclusion in the congressional agenda. Throughout the four years that Kirchner was president, his government took numerous measures in favor of sexual and reproductive rights. Under González García, the Health Ministry began a Program on Sexual and Responsible Reproduction with the goal of spreading information on birth control methods and providing free contraception in public hospitals, including the morning-after pill beginning in 2007. In 2006, Congress approved a Sexual Education Law (ESI) that required all public and private schools to offer sexual education to their students at all levels, from preschool to high school, constructing contents to be age-appropriate. Finally, in 2007 President Kirchner ratified the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which had been pending since the late 1990s and had been one of the main demands coming from the women’s movement ever since.

Expanding Access: Feminist Activists and the Health Ministry The lack of collaboration between abortion activists with the president or legislators to advance legal reform contrasts with the creation of strong ties between the movement – particularly health experts within their cadres – and the Health Ministry headed by González García. The launching of the Program on Sexual Health together with the public statements in favor of the legalization of abortion opened the door to this collaboration. The result of this relationship was the joint drafting of two health protocols that came to have significant impact in increasing access to abortion under the current legal framework. In 2005 a guide to improve medical care in post-abortion situations was published by the Health Ministry for distribution to all public hospitals.54 The document stipulated the need for the use of general anesthesia when incomplete abortions were treated with curettage and recommended the use of less invasive methods such as manual vacuum aspiration. It also emphasized

The Case of Argentina

153

the need to respect doctor–patient confidentiality and required doctors to treat women with dignity and respect. A second guide was published in December 2007, this time to regulate the care given in cases of non-punishable abortions, those allowed by the 1921 Criminal Code, such as the familiar cases of risk to women’s life, health and rape. The goal was to prevent doctors from acting on their own personal discretion and requesting judicial authorization prior to providing an abortion and thus delaying access to the procedure. Many bills had been introduced in Congress to regulate the implementation of Article 86 of the Criminal Code on non-punishable abortions but none had made it to plenary session (see Table 1.3). Both guides were drafted in consultation with feminist academics specialized in health policies working within the Center for Studies on State and Society (CEDES) and feminist lawyers who were part of the movement to advance abortion reform (Ruibal and Fernández Anderson 2018). The 2007 guide (as well as its 2010 and 2015 revised editions) was very influential in increasing abortion access. It embraced the World Health Organization’s comprehensive definition of health and as such allowed abortion to be legal beyond the restrictive definition of physical health to include psychological and social considerations. In addition, the guide stated that the decision on whether to continue a pregnancy that affected a woman’s health belonged to the woman, not the doctor. In cases of rape the document stated that a police report was not required and that it was enough to present an affidavit in which the woman states the pregnancy was the result of sexual violence (Ministerio de Salud y Ambiente 2015). But in the end, the Kirchner administration avoided clear-cut policy. Despite advances in sexual and reproductive rights, Néstor Kirchner never reached out directly to the women’s movement as a whole or to the campaign for abortion reform in particular.The fact that the campaign was in its infancy during his time in power explains why this might have been the case. Intervention meant a good deal of exposure with little coming back. The bill drafted by the campaign was only introduced to Congress in 2007, the last year of Kirchner’s administration, and thus the hopes for change would rest with in the following administration: The continuation of Néstor Kirchner’s political project through his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the first woman to be elected to the presidency.55

A Woman President (2007–2015): Hopes Deflated The election of the first woman to the presidency under the banner of a progressive political project inspired many to believe this would be the administration in which abortion legalization would happen.While the kirchnerist political project benefited many social movements and addressed many social justice issues, the fact that its party was not a traditional institutionalized left-wing party with roots in society and a clear program voted by internal institutions meant that the choice of

154 The Case of Argentina

which issues or movements to address was mostly decided by the party leadership, which in this case coincided with the Executive branch. In this scenario, the personal position of the Executive regarding any issue gained immediacy and utmost relevance.There is large agreement among activists, legislators and academics that President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s personal opposition to abortion has been a significant obstacle to any progress on legal reform throughout her two mandates.56 President Fernández de Kirchner had made her views public in 2003. Questioned by a French human rights lawyer about her position on abortion, she replied “I am not progressive, I am a peronist … I am against abortion.”57 Activists agree that Néstor Kirchner, although publicly expressing a similar opposition to the legalization of abortion, seemed to be more open to the idea than Fernández de Kirchner. Kirchner was clearly anticlerical and had no qualms in confronting the Catholic Church. He became the first president in the history of the country to refuse to attend the Tedeum, a religious service traditionally held in the Cathedral of Buenos Aires to celebrate national holidays.58 It has been said that he was also the one within the party who decided to support the bill on same-sex marriage and that he convinced Cristina Fernández to do so, which ensured its passing in Congress in 2010 under her presidency (Bimbi 2011). In the interviews conducted for this book, many activists speculated that had he not died in 2010 and been able to run for re-election, the chances for the legalization of abortion would have been greater. In fact, in 2017, even before the large mobilization for legal abortion that swept the country, Cristina Fernández stated in an interview that her husband was in favor of legalizing abortion.59 Aside from a reflection of Fernández de Kirchner’s personal position, not introducing this issue to the government agenda was in line with her personal history as a politician – at least, this is what some scholars argue. Fernández has the reputation of a woman politician who tries to play the political game as a man, focusing on the kind of issues men consider important and ignoring those they consider secondary. Her trajectory as a legislator confirms as much.While in Congress (1995–2007) she introduced 45 bills, none of which involved gender issues.As a president her inaugural speeches in Congress followed this same line.60 The recent shift in Cristina Fernández’s position on abortion – she voted in favor of the campaign’s bill in the Senate in August of 2018 – indicates that her opposition might have been more strategic than ideological, and it had to do at least partly with the lack of a strong movement for abortion reform when she was still in office. Given the fact that the kirchnerist project relied on alliances with social movements to strengthen its governments, it is telling that the women’s movement was not one of its choices.The relative weakness of the movement at the time, especially when compared to the expansion it experienced in 2017 and 2018, might explain why these administrations chose not to approach the campaign for abortion reform as a potential ally. Had the campaign reached the level of mobilization and support from public opinion and the media it received in

The Case of Argentina

155

2018 while Néstor Kirchner was in power, abortion reform could well have been embraced by his administration. Even Cristina Fernández, who by most accounts personally opposed legal abortion, ended up supporting this claim with her vote. She actually justified her decision by acknowledging the strength of the movement:“if you want to know who made me change my mind, it was the thousands of girls that took to the streets … we are going to add ‘feminist’ to our national and popular project.”61 Cristina Fernández’s opposition to abortion translated into removing González García as health minister when she took power.To replace González García, she appointed health ministers Graciela Ocaña and Juan Manzur, who were opposed to any change on abortion. These appointments interfered with the fluid relationship that existed between abortion activists and health ministry bureaucrats under González García, when women activists and health experts had had access to the Ministry. Experts in reproductive health reported setbacks not only in the advancement of abortion rights but even in the distribution of contraceptives and the overall lack of priority given to the Reproductive Health Program.62 A particular incident concerning the 2007 Guide for Non-Punishable Abortions is a good example. In July 2010, Health Minister Manzur stated he would give this guide the rank of a ministerial resolution, which implied its promotion and distribution in hospitals throughout the country.The next day, Manzur reversed his decision. Media reported that a personal phone call by President Cristina Fernández was behind the sudden change of course.63

Fears of Co-Optation: Mistrust Towards the Political System Given the existing threat and some past experiences of co-optation of social movements by governments and political parties, activists had understandably mistrusted political parties, both big and small, which has strengthened the appeal of autonomismo among Argentine movements in general, and the women’s movement in particular. Most activists firmly believe that their best path is to refuse to negotiate with the government and instead arrancar (extract) demands from those in power.The importance of autonomy in the women’s movement can be seen in the name that one of the first groups of women to challenge the anti-choice policies of the Menem administration chose for itself: Mujeres Autoconvocadas para Decidir en Libertad (Self-Organized Women to Decide Freely), emphasizing the fact that they neither identify with nor adhere to political parties or other organizations.The fear of co-optation has been behind the way the National Women’s Encuentros organized themselves.They are self-organized (autoconvocados), meaning without control of social and political organizations, particularly political parties, and women should speak in these meetings a título personal (from a personal point of view), and not focus on representing organizations they might be part of (Sutton and Borland 2013).These feelings of mistrust only grew stronger after

156 The Case of Argentina

the 2001 political and economic crisis, which dealt a strong blow to all political parties and politicians. The famous chant que se vayan todos (we want everybody out of office) rang through the streets during the height of mobilization in 2001 and 2002, and reflected the deep-seated and widespread mistrust of Argentine society as a whole towards all political parties, politicians and judges, meaning everybody that was in a position of power at the time (Dinerstein 2003). It was right after this crisis and partly due to the large mobilization of those years that the campaign for abortion reform began in 2005. The general mistrust and antipathy towards the government was not the only factor that ruled out the approach of developing a strong relationship with government officials. Such a strategy was difficult since it also created deep divisions within different organizations fighting for abortion rights. These divisions became notably toxic during the Fernández de Kirchner administrations, particularly between feminists aligned with small leftist political parties and those who identified with the kirchnerist political project (Tabbush et al. 2016). In the National Women’s Encuentros it was common to hear expressions of disagreement between those supporting a more radical strategy of street mobilization without engaging with the government and, on the other hand, those who believed in a multi-level strategy that included both being present in the streets but also communicating with those in power.64

Cardenal Bergoglio and Pope Francis I In addition to the opposition coming from the Executive branch, the power of the Church has also been at play in creating obstacles to abortion reform during Cristina Fernández’s administration. The Catholic Church had a tense relationship with both Kirchner administrations. The conflictive relationship began during President Kirchner’s mandate due to his secularism and rejection of the Church’s influence in state affairs.Tensions reached a peak under President Fernández during the debate on same-sex marriage in 2010. Cardinal Bergoglio mobilized the faithful in opposition to this bill, calling them to participate in “god’s war” against the bill that represented “the destruction of god’s plan.”65 Bergoglio’s positionality in this and other political fights made the government consider the Cardinal the leader of the opposition. Relationships remained tense until 2013 when an unexpected event increased even more the political power of the Catholic Church in Argentine politics. That year, the appointment of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francis I gave the Argentine Church a new source of power to influence local politics. The enthusiasm for having the first non-European pope in more than 1,000 years being Argentinean and the novelty around the image of frugality and openness of the new pope generated a craze for Pope Francis in society as a whole and particularly among politicians. Everybody wanted to have a meeting and a picture taken with the new pope, including those within the Kirchner administration and Cristina Fernández herself.66 No political

The Case of Argentina

157

leader was ready to risk their relationship with the Vatican to support the legalization of abortion (Ariza Navarrete and Saldivia Menajovsky 2015).

Empty Signatures: Weak Commitment from Congress Despite the opposition of the Executive, the campaign’s bill to legalize abortion managed to receive the support of an increasingly large group of legislators (see Table 4.1). First introduced in 2007 with the signature of 22 legislators, the bill received more support each time it was re-introduced, reaching 67 legislative signatures in 2015, the last year of the Fernández administration (Zurbriggen and Anzorena 2013).67 Despite this large number of signatures, it took Congress 11 years to introduce the bill to the agenda and discuss it in plenary session.Activists have expressed their frustration that for the most part almost all of the legislators who signed the bill did no internal lobbying for the bill to be discussed, which diminished the value of their signatures in the first place (Zurbriggen and Anzorena 2013).68 There have been, for example, legislators who signed the bill, however, when their presence was needed in a congressional commission to support it and move the debate along, refused to attend the session.69 Activists reported that legislators many times bend bureaucratic procedures for other issues but only became more rigid when it came to the matter of abortion (Tabbush et al. 2016).70 The signatures to support the campaign’s bill came initially from small leftwing parties, the UCR – given its tradition of fighting for civil liberties – but also from the kirchnerist Frente para la Victoria. One of the kirchnerist legislators who signed the bill was Juliana Di Tullio, the head of the majority party in Congress under President Fernández de Kirchner (2013–2015). Given her position, she was in a strong place to push for the inclusion of the bill in the congressional agenda. Despite her personal commitment to the legalization of abortion, she did not include the bill in the agenda and as such the bill was never discussed in a plenary session during the Fernández second mandate. In the midst of the 2018 debate of the campaign’s bill during the Center–Right Macri administration, Juliana Di Tullio reflected on her role in Congress back then: I knew how hard it was going to be without the help of the Executive branch to have this discussion inside my block … It was my decision not to include the bill in the agenda so as not to lose … that would have meant going back 50 years. I didn’t have half of the votes within my block and the same was happening in the others. (Di Tullio 2018) While she took responsibility for not pushing for the bill to be part of the congressional agenda, Di Tullio was at the same time acknowledging that the main obstacle was not having the support of the Executive to put pressure on those within the party to vote for it.

158 The Case of Argentina TABLE 4.1 Bills Introduced by the National Campaign for Safe, Legal and Free Abortion

in Argentina: 2008–2018 Year

Bill Number

Number of Legislators Supporting the Bill

2008

Bill 2700-D-08.

22 legislators from PS, Solidaridad e Igualdad,ARI, GEN, Coalicion Civica, UCR, Encuentro Popular y Social, Frente de Todos, Frente para la Victoria.

2010

Bill 0998-D-10.

39 legislators from Frente para la Victoria, PS, Si por la unidad popular, Proyecto progresista, Libres del Sur, Coalición Cívica, GEN, UCR, Frente de Todos, Nuevo Encuentro (32 more legislators join later).

2012

Bill 1218-D-12.

59 legislators from Frente para la Victoria, UCR, PS, GEN, Coalicion Civica ARI, Unidad Popular, Nuevo Encuentro, Libres del Sur, DIP, Proyecto Sur, PRO (47 legislators join later).

2016

Bill 4161-D-16.

44 legislators from Libres del Sur, Frente para la Victoria, PTS, Solidario Si, FIT, PS, UCR, GEN, Proyecto Sur, PRO, Federales Unidos, Peronismo para la Victoria, Diálogo y Trabajo, Izquierda Socialista (33 legislators join later).

2018

Bill 0230-D-18.

72 legislators from Libres del Sur, UCR, Frente para la Victoria, FIT, PRO, Federal Unidos, PTS, Evolución (64 legislators join later).

2019

Bill 2810-D-19.

68 legislators from Somos, UCR, Frente para la Victoria, PJ, PRO, FIT, Movimiento Evita, PTS, Evolución, Red.

As a consequence, of the close to 70 legislators who supported the campaign’s bill, only around 10% expressed a strong commitment to the legalization of abortion. Interaction was strong between this small group and the campaign. They all agreed to support the campaign’s bill instead of introducing their own bills to legalize abortion. Meetings to coordinate strategies took place in Congressional facilities, and these legislators actively negotiated with other legislators to increase the number of signatures and introduce the bill onto the agenda.71 However, most of them had no real power within Congress. Many of the feminist legislators were not central figures of their parties and as such they had no continuity in Congress. They were elected for one or two periods and many times could not renew their seats. As a consequence, their relationship with the movement was ephemeral, at least in terms of working within government institutions. An example of this case is former legislator Silvia Ausburger from the Socialist Party. She was very active in feminist issues but only had one term in Congress, from 2005 to 2009. Other examples included feminists active in the movement who later ran for Congress and became what has been labeled

The Case of Argentina

159

“institutional activists” (Pettinicchio 2012). Member of the Foro de Derechos Reproductivos and former legislator Marcela Rodríguez (2001–2013) was just such an individual. In her own words:“I am a feminist, a feminist activist before being a legislator. And also, in ideological terms … I vote for what aligns with a feminist ideology.”72 This kind of legislator is what the movement needs in terms of allies who will not try to co-opt and moderate the movement’s demands. But, at the same time, legislators who do not respect or prioritize the party line end up losing power within Congress. Due to disagreement with her party Civic Coalition (Coalición Cívica, CC), in 2011 legislator Rodríguez ended up resigning from the party, becoming an independent legislator until the end of her mandate in 2013. While these feminist legislators were very committed to the campaign and did everything they could to advance the legalization of abortion in Congress, their positionality within the party system and the power structure within Congress made them sympathetic but weak allies who had no power to lobby and impose the issue onto the congressional agenda.

Increasing Access through the Judiciary: The 2012 F.A.L. Case During both the Kirchner and Fernández de Kirchner administration, a large number of bills were introduced to Congress by progressive legislators – this time not to legalize abortion on request, but to clarify the implementation of Article 86 of the Criminal Code making sure that the abortions allowed by law were provided. Similar to the fate of the more ambitious bills legalizing abortion on demand, these bills also failed to reach the plenary session. It was then, in 2012, that a Supreme Court ruling put an end to almost a century of debates around the interpretation of this article. In March 2012, the Supreme Court heard the case of a 15-year-old girl, left pregnant after being raped by her step-father, who was denied a legal abortion – despite rape being one of the exceptions accounted for by the law. In the ruling, the Court stated that abortion was legal in all cases of rape and not only in cases of women with mental disabilities, something that had been contested by conservatives since 1921, and that there was no need for judicial authorization or a police report.The ruling also forced provincial governments to introduce health protocols to increase abortion access. Despite this ruling, by 2018 only 12 out of 24 provinces had complied and passed abortion protocols in line with the Supreme Court guidelines, and six had their own more restrictive protocols with seven of them lacking any regulation (Ramón Michel and Ariza 2018). The Supreme Court ruling reinforced the work that was being done from the Health Ministry. It did for the case of rape what the Health Ministry protocol had done with for case of risk to women’s health, clarifying the interpretation of the law in a way that increased access to abortion. After these two steps were

160 The Case of Argentina

taken, doctors felt more protected and less fearful when faced with a request for an abortion in their daily practice.73

Collaboration with Provincial Health Ministries When the doors of the National Health Ministry were closed to abortion reform, health experts within the movement reached out to other government venues to advance access to legal abortions throughout the country.Taking advantage of the federal structure of the country, activists for abortion reform participated in reproductive health programs at the provincial and local level. One successful case occurred in the province of Buenos Aires. Lawyers and doctors that were part of the feminist movement were appointed to the provincial Health Ministry, becoming “institutional activists.” Inspired by the Uruguayan experience of harm reduction, the provincial Health Ministry set up pre- and post-abortion consultation services in neighborhood primary-care centers in La Plata and Morón in 2007 (Matía et al. 2016). This was done in places in which there were health professionals interested in the proposal, and not mandated by the Health Ministry in all the jurisdictions as it was done in Uruguay, thus the reach was more moderate (ADC and GIRE 2012). OBGYNs in large hospitals were more reluctant to provide abortions and implement the guidelines coming from the national ministry. On the contrary, neighborhood health centers were staffed with generalist doctors, who analyze health in a more comprehensive way, and were more open to provide information on safe abortion and practice those interventions that fall under the legal exceptions. With the goal of promoting reproductive services in these local health centers the provincial Health Ministry got in touch with neighborhood women’s organizations and established an ongoing relationship with them to spread the knowledge about the availability of these services.74 Without a doubt, the application of harm reduction programs helped increase access to safe abortions. However, at the same time, the program generated a good deal of frustration among doctors. Clinicians were allowed to give patients information about medical abortion, but not to prescribe Misoprostol, knowing how difficult acquiring the medication could be particularly for the more vulnerable individuals. In addition, there were many patients who did not show up to the post-abortion visit, leaving doctors unsure if those women were able to have access to a safe abortion and preventing them from guiding them in the use of contraception to avoid another unwanted pregnancy (McReynolds Perez 2017). In this context and encouraged by the National Health Ministry guide on abortion that defined health as the complete state of mental, physical and social well-being, many doctors began to interpret the health exception present in the law in a broader way. Through their participation in the harm reduction program and through listening to their patients, health professionals understood that

The Case of Argentina

161

the stress, anxiety and/or depression produced by an unwanted pregnancy was enough to justify the implementation of the health clause that allowed legal abortions when health was at risk.These doctors, many of them active in the campaign and the abortion reform movement, began redefining the law in a way that all unwanted pregnancies could classify for a legal abortion (Ruibal and Fernández Anderson 2018). They shifted their practice from a harm reduction strategy to providing legal termination of pregnancies (McReynolds Perez 2017). This shift in doctors’ approach not only empowered patients but removed the stigma often associated with the practice of abortion. In these medical appointments, doctors read the Health Ministry protocol to the person requesting an abortion, including the broad definition of health, and explain to them that their abortion was legal.75 In 2014 many of the health professionals who shared this vision got together and launched the group Health Professionals for the Right to Choose, which is part of the national campaign for safe, legal and free abortion. The impact of the Health Ministry protocols and of health professionals’ activism in increasing access to abortion within the current legal framework has been quite significant.As a result of the implementation of the harm reduction program and the broad interpretation of the health clause, maternal mortality for unsafe abortion decreased considerably – more than two-thirds between 2011 and 2014 in the Province of Buenos Aires (Matia et al. 2016). Instead of waiting for legal reform to happen, activist doctors and Health Ministry officials are reinterpreting the current law increasing the options of women with unwanted pregnancies.

Conclusion These improving conditions notwithstanding,Argentina has seen no change in the legal status of abortion since the 1921 Criminal Code was approved by Congress. There certainly have been attempts.Within the context of three left-leaning peronist administrations in power from 2003 until 2015 feminist activists launched the campaign for legal free and safe abortion. But the lack of a strong left-wing party with roots in society coupled with a non-supportive Executive, a weak division of powers and an influential Catholic Church prevented the establishment of a close collaboration between activists and sympathetic legislators in Congress, reducing the possibilities of abortion reform.The campaign drafted a bill proposing abortion reform and introduced it in Congress numerous times but the proposed legislation was never discussed, let alone voted on. Given the general indifference to the campaign from both the Executive and Legislative branch, activists diversified their efforts and pursued collaborations with technocrats in the Health Ministries at the national and provincial levels.These initiatives resulted in no policy change but the drafting of health protocols and development of new programs and practices that increased access to abortion within the current legal framework. The year 2018 witnessed a change in many of the variables presented in this analysis. An in-depth analysis of these shifts will be provided in Chapter 5 as part

162 The Case of Argentina

of the conclusions to this book. But for now, it is important to note that the increased strength the campaign gained since 2017 and how this created a political opening for abortion reform to be debated for the first time in Congress demonstrates the central role of social movements in advancing change in controversial issues such as abortion.The campaign increased the number of activists and contributing organizations, their street demonstrations reached hundreds of thousands of participants and their symbols and demands appeared throughout TV channels and newspapers. The consolidation of the abortion movement as a strong voice in the abortion debate opened up possibilities of collaboration with sympathetic legislators in Congress.The increased movement strength, coupled with a change in the Executive branch – in the sense of supporting the opening of the abortion debate in Congress, not necessarily in its position on abortion – created conditions that facilitated collaboration between activists and a multi-party coalition of sympathetic legislators. This collaboration was a significant factor in passing the bill in the Lower Chamber in June of 2018.Activists acknowledge that the lack of a similar connection between the movement and senators might have been largely responsible for the defeat in this chamber, where the bill was defeated by seven votes in August of 2018.76

Notes 1. Interview by author. 2. This polarization has been called la grieta, the crack or rift. 3. Other more recently founded small left-wing parties have been: Workers’ Party (Partido Obrero, PO, 1964); Movement for Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo, MAS, 1982); United Left (Izquierda Unida, 1987); Movement of Socialist Workers (Movimiento Socialista de Trabajadores, MST, 1992); Socialist Workers’ Party (Partido de Trabajadores Socialistas, PTS, 1988). Recently some of these have joined the Front of Leftist Workers (Frente de Izquierda y los Trabajadores, FIT, 2011). 4. Mario Pecheny, Presentation at Amherst College, Amherst, MA, April 2015. Interviews with Argentinean members of the national campaign for safe and legal abortion, Buenos Aires and Cordoba, June 2014. 5. Interview with Mario Pecheny, Buenos Aires, July 2016. Interview with feminist lawyer, Buenos Aires, July 2016. 6. I use the fourth wave (2005–2009) of the World Values Survey since it is the one that was conducted while the Pink Tide was in place in these three countries. 7. This concept measures the density of voluntary associations and the degree to which membership in secular and religious association overlap (Hagopian 2009). 8. See Clarín, “En medio de la frialdad con el gobierno, la Iglesia renuncia al aporte económico del estado.” November 11, 2018. 9. See Página 12,“El barril sin fondo.”August 19, 2018.Viewed on June 15, 2019. 10. The Christian Democratic Party (Partido Demócrata Cristiano) was created in 1954 but has never been a significant political force.The party has supported PJ candidates for the presidency in most elections. 11. Peronism in particular has had a widely changing relationship with the Catholic Church throughout its history. President Peron began his first administration actively promoting Catholicism, and later became a strong opponent of the Church, removing their privileges and legalizing divorce. In the 1970s, peronist left-wing groups created a synthesis of Catholicism and socialism creating strong divisions within the Catholic Church.

The Case of Argentina

163

12. Interviews with various national legislators in Buenos Aires, 2008 and 2012. 13. See Página 12,“A dios rogando pero en la gente pensando.” January 14, 2012. 14. See CNN en español,“Estas son las mejores universidades de America Latina.” June 20, 2019. 15. Data coded by author. 16. Rodolfo Barra as Minister of Justice and Supreme Court Judge Antonio Boggiano. 17. The first feminist groups that emerged in Argentina in the early 1970s were Unión Feminista Argentina (Argentine Feminist Union) and Movimiento de Liberación Femenina (Female Liberation Movement). Both began demanding the right to abortion during these years. In addition, feminist branches emerged within leftist organizations. In 1973, Muchachas (Girls) was created within the Socialist Party, and in 1974 Movimiento Feminista Popular (Popular Feminist Movement) emerged within the Frente de Izquierda Popular (Popular Leftist Front). 18. Presidential decree No. 3,938. 19. See interview with her in Las 12,“La vida en verde.” May 30, 2008. 20. Interview with feminist activist Martha Rosenberg, Buenos Aires, October 1, 2007. 21. The Multisectorial presented the following demands: a) Amendment of the Patria potestad law, b) the equality under the law of children born in and out of wedlock, c) ratification of the UN Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, d) implementation of the Day Nurseries Law, e) amendment of the Housewives’ Pension Law, f) adherence to the principle of equal pay for equal work and g) creation of the State Secretariat for Women. See Bonder (1989). Many of these issues would be addressed by the Alfonsín administration (1983–1989). 22. An example is the Asociación de Trabajo y Estudio de la Mujer (Work Association for the Study of Women, ATEM), which in 1984 took to the streets on International Women’s Day to hand out flyers denouncing the deaths of women for clandestine abortions. 23. Examples of these are Dora Coledesky and Martha Rosenberg. 24. The initial members of this commission were Susan Sommer (biologist), Dora Coledesky (labor lawyer), Sabina Newbery (anthropologist), Laura Klein (philosopher) and Erica Dummontel (lawyer). 25. Interview with Martha Rosenberg, Buenos Aires, October 1, 2007. 26. MADEL was a heterogeneous group made up of 108 women’s organizations, among which there were union workers, politicians, activists, NGOs and even people from the government’s Secretariat for Women. 27. Interview with Martha Rosenberg, Buenos Aires, October 1, 2007. 28. See the campaign’s website at www.abortolegal.com.ar. 29. Interview with member of the national campaign for legal, safe and free abortion, Buenos Aires, 2012. 30. Interview with campaign member Marta Alanis, Buenos Aires, July 2016. 31. Interview with member of the national campaign for legal, safe and free abortion, Buenos Aires, 2012. 32. See Página 12,“Matrimonio igualitario y aborto. Entrevista a Hebe de Bonafini.” July 25, 2010. 33. See CHA’s (Comunidad Homosexual Argentina) public statements at their website at www.cha.org.ar/articulo.php?art=57&cat=16. 34. See Página 12,“Apoyo de la universidad a un derecho.”August 13, 2010. 35. See Página 12,“Credos con otra Mirada.” May 31, 2011. 36. See Agencia Paco Urondo,“La CGT sobre el aborto legal:Acompañáremos la decisión que derive de la votación en el Congreso.” July 6, 2018. 37. See Agencia ACTA,“La CTA por el derecho al aborto.” October 1, 2014. 38. See their declaration in their website at www.acaderc.org.ar/academia/declaracionesde-la-academia/declaracion-sobre-aborto/view.The protection of the right to life, in

164 The Case of Argentina

39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66.

general, from the moment of conception is in the Pacto de San José de Costa Rica. However, there is no agreement among jurists in the interpretation of this international treaty defending life from the moment of conception. See Chapter 1 for a discussion of this treaty. See Página 12,“Pronunciamiento de los abogados.”August, 13, 2010. Interview with member of Profesionales de la Salud por el Derecho a Decidir, Buenos Aires, July 29, 2016. See Página 12,“Apoyo de la Universidad a un derecho. Resolución de la UBA a favor de la despenalización.”August 13, 2010. See “La Medicina alza su voz contra el apoyo al aborto en la Universidad de la Plata.” www.hazteoir.org. Expression to refer to the large demonstrations that took place throughout 2018 while Congress was debating the campaign’s bill. It refers to the campaign’s identifying color – green – and the massive street protests. See Clarín,“Graves incidentes durante la marcha del Encuentro Nacional de Mujeres.” October 9, 2016. Coding by author. See one of these ads at www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEAOKBIApJw. See Mori and Analia Franco surveys cited in Página 12, “Cifras para una polémica sobre el aborto.” November 30, 2004. See Clarín,“Seis encuestas ya indagaron sobre el aborto: la mayoría opinó a favor de la despenalización.” March 18, 2018. See Clarín,“Dos nuevas encuestas sobre el aborto a horas de que arranque el debate.”April 9, 2018. The 2003 Encuentro in Rosario brought 10,000 women, while the 2015 event held in Mar del Plata and the 2017 event in Chaco gathered 60,000 and 70,000 respectively. See Página 12,“La marea feminista sigue creciendo. Masiva marcha por el 8M.” March 8, 2018. The legislators were Alfredo Bravo (Unidad Socialista), Maria José Lubertino and Gabriela González Gaas (Union Civica Radical). See Clarín,“Aborto: Los obispos locales se suman a la polémica.” March 1, 2004. See Clarín, “Kirchner salió a cortar la polémica por la despenalización del aborto.” November 27, 2004. Resolution No. 989/2005. See document in Aszkenazi (2007: 119). In 1974, vice president Maria Estela Martinez de Peron took power as president of Argentina after her husband President Juan Domingo Peron died. This was stated in most of the interviews with activists, legislators and academics. See La Nación,“Cristina Kirchner: no soy progre, soy peronista.” November 23, 2003. See La Nación, “El 25 de mayo Kirchner estará lejos del tedeum de la Catedral.” May 14, 2005. See Página 12,“No estoy en contra del debate.” September 29, 2017. See Página 12,“Las congéneres de la Presidenta.” March 2, 2009. See Clarín,“Cristina Kirchner dijo que las miles de chicas que se volcaron a la calle la hicieron cambiar su posición sobre el aborto.”August 9, 2018. See Página 12, “Silvina Ramos: Hay un silenciamiento sobre el tema aborto.” January 15, 2009; Página 12, “Entrevista a Paula Ferro. Las mujeres tienen derecho a decidir.” January 8, 2010. See Clarín, “La trastienda del papelón oficial sobre un tema sensible. Un llamado de Cristina a Manzur freno la resolución sobre el aborto.” July 23, 2010. Participant observation by author in the workshops of the 22nd Encuentro Nacional de Mujeres in Cordoba, 2007. See BBC,“Las claves de la tensión entre Bergoglio y los Kirchner.” March 15, 2013. See The Guardian, “Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner Turns Pope Francis from Foe to Friend.” March, 27, 2013.

The Case of Argentina

165

67. See Página 12,“Los otros femicidios.” May 22, 2015. 68. Interview with Martha Rosenberg, member of the national campaign for legal, safe and free abortion, Buenos Aires, 2007; interview with Ruth Zurbriggen, member of the national campaign for legal, safe and free abortion,Amherst, MA,April 2015. 69. This was the case in November 2011 when the bill was for the first time discussed in the Committee on Criminal and General Legislation. 70. An example of this was the controversy around the validity of the approval of the bill in the Committee on Criminal and General Legislation in November 2011. 71. Interview with legislator, Buenos Aires, October 10, 2012; interview with socialist legislator, Buenos Aires, September 19, 2007. 72. Interview with legislator, Buenos Aires, October 10, 2012. 73. Interview with feminist lawyer II, Buenos Aires, July 2014. 74. Interview with feminist lawyer, Buenos Aires, July 2016. 75. Interview with member of Profesionales de la salud por el derecho a decidir, Buenos Aires, July 2016. 76. Interview with member of the national campaign, May 28, 2019, Boston, MA.

Bibliography Alcaraz, Maria Florencia. 2019. Que sea ley! La lucha de los feminismos por el aborto legal. Buenos Aires: Editorial Marea. Aleman, Eduardo and George Tsebelis, eds. 2016. Legislative Institutions and Lawmaking in Latin America. New York: Oxford University Press. Alma,Amanda and Paula Lorenzo. 2009. Mujeres que se encuentran. Una recuperación histórica de los Encuentros Nacionales de Mujeres en Argentina (1986–2005). Buenos Aires: Feminaria editora. Álvarez, Sonia. 1999.“Advocating Feminism:The Latin American Feminist NGO Boom.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 1 (2): 181–209. Ariza Navarrete, Sonia and Laura Saldivia Menajovsky. 2015. “Matrimonio igualitario e identidad de genero si, aborto no.” Derecho y Crítica social 1 (1): 181–209. Artemisa. 2008. El aborto en la prensa gráfica argentina. Córdoba: Católicas por el derecho a decidir. Asociacion por los derechos civiles (ADC) and Grupo de Informacion en Reproduccion Elegida (GIRE). 2012.“Informe sobre la situacion de la accesibilidad al aborto no punible en America Latina y el Caribe.” www.clacaidigital.info/handle/123456789/382. Aszkenazi, Marcela. 2007. Clausuras y aperturas. Debates sobre el aborto. Buenos Aires: Editorial Espacio. Bimbi, Bruno. 2011. Matrimonio igualitario. Intrigas, tensiones y secretos en el camino hacia la ley. Buenos Aires: Espejo de la Argentina Planeta. Bellucci, Mabel. 2014. Historia de una desobediencia.Aborto y feminismo. Buenos Aires: Editorial Capital Intelectual. Bianco, Mabel. 2000. “Comentario. MADEL” In Martin Abregu and Silvina Ramos, eds. La Sociedad civil frente a las nuevas formas de institucionalidad democrática. Buenos Aires: CEDES/CELS. Blofield, Merike. 2006. The Politics of Moral Sin: Abortion and Divorce in Spain, Chile and Argentina. New York: Routledge. Bonder, Gloria. 1989.“Women’s Organizations in Argentina’s Transition to Democracy.” In Yolande Cohen, ed. Women and Counter Power. Quebec: Black Rose Books. Borland, Elizabeth. 2010. “Crisis as a Catalyst for Cooperation? Women’s Organizing in Buenos Aires.” In Nella Van Dyke and Holly J. McCammon, eds. Strategic Alliances: Coalition Building and Social Movements. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

166 The Case of Argentina

Bouvard, Marguerite. 1993. Revolutionizing Motherhood: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo. Oxford: SR Books. Butler, David. 1969. “Charisma, Migration and Elite Coalescence: An Interpretation of Peronism.” Comparative Politics 1 (3): 423–439. Calvo, Ernesto and Maria Victoria Murillo. 2005.“The New Iron Law of Argentine Politics: Partisanship, Clientelism and Governability in Contemporary Argentina.” In Steven Levitsky and Maria Victoria Murillo, eds. The Politics of Institutional Weakness: Argentine Democracy. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press. Calvo, Ernesto and Inaki Sagarzazu. 2016. “Presidential Agenda Authority in Plurality Led Congresses: Agenda Setting Prerogatives without Majority Support.” In Eduardo Aleman and George Tsebelis, eds. Legislative Institutions and Lawmaking in Latin America. New York: Oxford University Press. Canton, Dario et al. 1976.“Un intento de estimación de las celdas interiores de una tabla de contingencia basado en el análisis de regresión: El caso de las elecciones presidenciales de 1946 y marzo de 1973.” Desarrollo económico 16 (1): 395–417. Checa, Susana and Martha Rosenberg. 1996. Aborto Hospitalizado. Buenos Aires: Ediciones El Cielo por Asalto. Chejter, Silvia, Laura Laudano, Kathya Araujo and Niki Johnson. 2002. Mundos Paralelos: Agenda de Género y Movimientos Sociales en Argentina, Chile y Uruguay. Santiago de Chile: CECYM/ISIS/ MEMCH/Cotidiano Mujer. Coppedge, Michael. 1997. “A Classification of Latin American Political Parties.” Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies,Working paper 244. Corrales, Javier. 2002. Presidents without Parties:The Politics of Economic Reform in Argentina and Venezuela in the 1990s. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Di Marco, Graciela. 2011. El pueblo feminista: movimientos sociales y lucha de las mujeres en torno a la ciudadanía. Buenos Aires: Editorial Biblos. Dinerstein, Ana. 2003. “Que se vayan todos! Popular insurrection and the Asambleas Barriales in Argentina.” Bulletin of Latin America Research 22 (2): 187–200. Di Tullio, Juliana. 2018. “Ganar o perder. Paradojas del aborto.” Revista Anfibia. http:// revistaanfibia.com/ensayo/paradojas-del-aborto/. Domínguez,Alejandra. 2004. Situación de la salud y el aborto en Argentina. Buenos Aires: DAWN. Fisher, Jo. 1993. Out of the Shadows:Women, Resistance and Politics in South America. London: Latin America Bureau. Feijoo, Maria del Carmen and Marcela Nari. 1996. “Women in Argentina during the 1960s.” Latin American Perspectives 23 (1): 7–26. Ferretti, Natalia. 2010. Majority Dominance or Power-Sharing: Control of the Legislative Agenda in the Argentine Congress. Dissertation. University of California, Berkeley. Gibson, Edward. 1996. Conservative Party Politics in Latin America: Patterns of Electoral Mobilization in the 1980s and 1990s. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Giraudy, Maria Eugenia. 2015. Conservative Popular Appeals:The Electoral Strategies of Latin America’s Right Parties. Dissertation. University of California, Berkeley. Germani, Gino. 1955. Estructura social de la Argentina. Buenos Aires: Raigal. Gervasoni, Carlos. 2018.“Argentina’s Declining Party System: Fragmentation, Denationalization, Factionalization, Personalization and Increasing Fluidity.” In Scott Mainwaring, ed. Party Systems in Latin America: Institutionalization, Decay and Collapse. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Gutiérrez, María Alicia. 2000. “Mujeres Autoconvocadas para Decidir en Libertad (MADEL): La experiencia reciente del movimiento de mujeres.” In Martin Abregu and

The Case of Argentina

167

Silvina Ramos, eds. La Sociedad civil frente a las nuevas formas de institucionalidad democrática. Buenos Aires: CEDES/CELS. Gutiérrez, María Alicia, Mónica Gogna and Silvina Ramos. 1998. “Hacia nuevas formas de relación entre la sociedad civil y el estado: la experiencia de Mujeres Autoconvocadas para Decidir en libertad.” In Elisabete Doria Bilac and María Isabel Baltar da Rocha, eds. Saude Reprodutiva na America Latina e no Caribe: temas e problemas. Sao Paulo: NEP UNICAMP. Hagopian, Frances. 2009. Religious Pluralism, Democracy and the Catholic Church in Latin America. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Halperin Donghi,Tulio. 1995. Historia contemporánea de América Latina. Madrid: Alianza. Htun, Mala. 2003. Sex and the State: Abortion, Divorce and the Family under Latin American Dictatorships and Democracies. New York: Cambridge University Press. Jones, Mark and Wonjae Hwang. 2005.“Provincial Party Bosses: Keystone of the Argentine Congress.” In Steven Levitsky and Maria Victoria Murillo, eds. The Politics of Institutional Weakness: Argentine Democracy. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press. Kitschelt, Herbert, Kirk Hawkins, Juan Pablo Luna, Guillermo Tosas and Elizabeth Zechmeister. 2010. Latin American Party Systems. New York: Cambridge University Press. Levitsky, Steven. 2003. Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America:Argentine Peronism in Comparative Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press. Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1981. Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Llanos, Mariana. 2002. Privatization and Democracy in Argentina: An Analysis of PresidentCongress Relations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Llamazares, Ivan. 2005.“Patterns in Contingencies:The Interlocking of Formal and Informal Political Institutions in Contemporary Argentina.” Social Forces 83 (4): 1671–1696. Lupu, Noam and Susan Stokes. 2009. “The Social Bases of Political Parties in Argentina, 1912–2003.” Latin American Research Review 44 (1): 58–87. Maffía, Diana, Luciana Peker,Aluminé Moreno and Laura Morroni. 2013. Mujeres pariendo historia. Como se gestó el Primer Encuentro Nacional de Mujeres. Reseña íntima y política de las integrantes de la Comisión promotora. Buenos Aires: Imprenta de la Legislatura de la CABA. Mainwaring, Scott. 2018. Party Systems in Latin America: Institutionalization, Decay and Collapse. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Mainwaring, Scott and Timothy Scully, eds. 1995. Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin America. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Matía, M.G., de Salud Sexual, C.D.P., Avenida, R., de Trumper, E.C. and de Ginecología, F.A.D.S. 2016.“El acceso al aborto no punible como una política pública de reducción de la mortalidad maternal por aborto en la provincial de Buenos Aires,Argentina.” www. ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Women/WRGS/FollowUp/Argentina.pdf. McReynolds Perez, Julie. 2017. “No Doctors Required: Lay Activist Expertise and Pharmaceutical Abortion in Argentina.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 42 (2): 349–375. Melucci, Mabel. 2009. “La vida digna de ser vivida.” Blogpost. http://mujeresabordo. blogspot.com/2009/09/la-vida-digna-de-ser-vivida-por-mabel.html. Ministerio de Salud y Ambiente. 2015. Protocolo para la atención integral de personas con derecho a la interrupción legal del embarazo. Buenos Aires: Ministerio de Salud y Ambiente. Moreira, Constanza. 2006. “Party Systems, Political Alternation and Ideology in the South Cone (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay).” Revista Uruguaya de Ciencia Política 2: 1–20. Morresi, Sergio and Gabriel Vommaro. 2014.“The Difficulties of the Partisan Right and the Case of Propuesta Republicana.” In Juan Pablo Luna and Cristobal Rovira Raltwasser, eds. Resilience of the Latin American Right. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

168 The Case of Argentina

Murillo, Maria Victoria and Steven Levistky. 2008.“Argentina: From Kirchner to Kirchner.” Journal of Democracy 19 (2): 16–30. Mustapic, Ana María. 2000.“Oficialistas y diputados: las relaciones ejecutivo-legislativo en la Argentina.” Desarrollo Económico 39 (156): 571–595. Negretto, Gabriel. 2004. “Government Capacities and Policy Making by Decree in Latin America:The Cases of Brazil and Argentina.” Comparative Political Studies 37 (5): 531–562. Pecheny, Mario. 2011.“Yo no soy progre, soy peronista. ¿Porque es tan difícil discutir políticamente sobre aborto?” In Paola Bergallo and Agustina Ramón Michel, eds. Aborto y justicia reproductiva. Buenos Aires: Editorial del Puerto. Pettinicchio, David. 2012. “Institutional Activism: Reconsidering the Insider/Outsider Dichotomy.” Sociology Compass 6 (6): 499–510. Petracci, Mónica and Silvina Ramos. 2006. La Política Publica de Salud y Derechos Sexuales y Reproductivos en la Argentina: Aportes para Comprender su Historia. Buenos Aires: CEDES/ UNPFA. Ostiguy, Pierre. 2009.“Argentina’s Double Political Spectrum: Party System, Political Identities and Strategies, 1944–2007.” Kellogg Institute Working Paper 361. Ramón Michel,Agustina and Sonia Ariza. 2018. La legalidad del aborto en Argentina. Buenos Aires: REDAAS. Romero, Luis. 1963. A History of Argentine Political Thought. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Rouco Pérez, María José and Alicia Schejter. 1995.“Información, evaluación y propuestas de la lucha. El derecho al aborto en Argentina 1984–1994.” Brujas. Revista Feminista, 14, 22. Ruibal, Alba and Cora Fernández Anderson. 2018. “Legal Obstacles and Social Change: Strategies of the Abortion Rights Movement in Argentina.” Politics, Groups and Identities. DOI: 10.1080/21565503.2018.1541418. Sutton, Barbara and Elizabeth Borland. 2013. “Framing Abortion Rights in Argentina’s Encuentros Nacionales de Mujeres.” Feminist Studies 39 (1): 194–234. Sutton Barbara and Nayla Vacarezza. 2018. “Imágenes por el derecho al aborto: Apuestas visuales de las organizaciones activistas en Argentina.” Latin American Studies Association,Annual Conference, Barcelona. Tabbush, Constanza, Catalina Trebisacce, María Constanza Díaz and Victoria Keller. 2016. “Matrimonio igualitario, identidad de género y disputas por el derecho al aborto en Argentina: La política sexual durante el kirchnerismo (2003–2015).” Sexualidad, Salud y Sociedad 22: 22–55. Tarducci, Mónica, Catalina Trebisacce and Karin Grammatico. 2019. Cuando el feminismo era mala palabra.Algunas experiencias del feminismo porteño. Buenos Aires: Editorial Espacio. Vasallo, Marta. 2005. En Nombre de la Vida. Buenos Aires: Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir. Waylen, Georgina. 1994. “Women and Democratization: Conceptualizing Gender Relations in Transition Politics.” World Politics 46 (3): 327–354. Waylen, Georgina. 2000. “Gender and Democratic Politics: A Comparative Analysis of Consolidation in Argentina and Chile.” Journal of Latin American Studies 32 (3): 765–793. Zeichmeister, Elizabeth. 2006.“What’s Left and Who’s Right? A Q-Method Study of Individual and Contextual Influences on the Meaning of Ideological Labels.” Political Behavior 28 (2): 151–173. Zurbriggen, Ruth and Claudia Anzorena. 2013. El aborto como derecho de las mujeres. Otra historia es posible. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Herramienta.

5 CONCLUSION Abortion Reform in the Southern Cone – Beyond the Pink Tide

In the last three decades, two conflicting trends have emerged in Latin America with regard to the legal status of abortion. On the one hand, campaigns for abortion liberalization have increased in visibility and strength, in some cases resulting in the advancement of abortion reform. In 2005 feminist lawyer Mónica Roa judicially challenged the total abortion ban in Colombia, a case that resulted in the Constitutional Court legalizing abortion in cases of danger to the life and health of the woman, life-threatening fetal malformations and cases of rape. In 2007, women’s organizations succeeded in legalizing abortion on request in Mexico City. In 2012, the Uruguayan Congress passed a bill that legalized abortion during the first trimester, and in 2017 Chile abandoned the total ban to allow the practice in cases of threat to the woman’s life, fetal malformations incompatible with life outside the womb and cases of rape. Mobilizations demanding the legalization of abortion have occurred in most of the countries throughout the region with an increasing strength particularly in the last three years. At the same time, other countries within the region have passed increasing constraints to already restrictive abortion policies. Honduras in 1998, El Salvador in 1998, Nicaragua in 2006 and the Dominican Republic in 2009 all eliminated therapeutic abortions from their criminal codes, banning the practice under all circumstances without exceptions. Particularly alarming is the fact that since this policy change Salvadorian courts have equated abortion with aggravated homicide, convicting and sentencing women to 30 years in prison. The alliance between Catholic and Evangelical churches and their increased political influence seems to be behind many of these pushes for increased restrictions (Kampwirth 2008; Heumann and Duyvendak 2015). The movements behind these two contradictory trends engage one another, reacting to each other’s victories and failures both within respective countries

170 Conclusion

and around the larger region.This dynamic is never clearer than within Mexico, where, after the legalization of abortion on demand in Mexico City, more than half of the Mexican states amended their constitutions to define the beginning of life from conception, making abortion reform even more difficult. In return, as recent as September of 2019, another state, Oaxaca, followed the capital city and legalized abortion by request during the first trimester. In short, the regulation of abortion has become a significant issue present in Latin American countries; it is not going away any time soon. The relevance of abortion within the contemporary political and social agenda is not limited to this region.The US, which addressed the issue as early as 1973 with the legalization of abortion on request through the Roe v. Wade ruling, has seen an increased polarization around abortion that seems to have no end. The increased restrictions on abortion passed at the state level in the last ten years have been slowly eroding the rights supposedly guaranteed by Roe. With the recent appointments of Judges Gorsuch and Kavanagh, the court has tilted to anti-choice, making it possible for the first time in many years to think of Roe being repealed. It is within this context that the analysis of the processes that led to abortion reform in Latin America gains relevance.This book has argued that when activists work together with allies in power the likelihood of passing policy reform increases. With this in mind, the present analysis problematizes the presence or absence of instances of collaboration between activists and government officials, trying to understand under which conditions these develop or fail to do so. In this final chapter I review the main argument and findings of the book and explore their theoretical implications for the literatures on social movement outcomes and gender politics. I consider the application of the theoretical model for other cases of left-wing governments in the region and analyze the conditions that allow for the emergence of collaboration between activists and state allies (Mexico City) or the lack of such developments (Brazil). I also propose the applicability of the model to other gender issues and even other kinds of social movements beyond gender politics. The book is framed within the Pink Tide that took place in Latin America in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Given the scholarly consensus that this phase has come to an end and most Latin American countries are now led by right-wing governments, it is necessary to assess the future of abortion reform under these new political circumstances. The 2018 debate on abortion reform under the Center–Right government of Mauricio Macri in Argentina is a good case to start. I dedicate part of the Conclusion to apply the theoretical model proposed by this book to this case and test the main propositions in a different political context. I show how some of the variables within this model shifted so as to allow the congressional debate to take place under unexpected circumstances and thus reflect on the relevance of the theoretical model in this new scenario.

Conclusion

171

Major Findings of the Study Clearly, having allies in power increases the likelihood that social movements will see their demands addressed by policy reform. However, these alliances between activists and government officials are not always easy to build or even the preferred strategy for movements.The strength of the social movement, the institutional characteristics of the party system, the Executive preferences around the issue at stake and the power of the Catholic Church come together to explain why these collaborations have been possible between women’s movements and allies in power in Uruguay, but not in Chile and Argentina. Social movements are fundamental actors in the political process that leads to policy reform in the arena of gender politics. In the absence of a movement that defines the issue as such, organizes around it and demands a change in policy from the government, it is unlikely that politicians, even from left-wing parties, will address the issue on their own. The perception of political risk associated with an issue such as abortion, rejected as it is by conservative sectors and powerful actors such as the Catholic Church, pushes politicians into supporting the status quo and ignoring demands for change.That is, unless social movements become strong enough to turn the support for abortion reform from a risk to an opportunity. Measuring the strength of the social movement is thus a relevant variable to understand when left-wing parties in power might be willing to explore close collaborations with activists to jointly advance abortion reform. Uruguay is a good example of the possibilities. Uruguay displayed the strongest movement for abortion reform of the three cases in the time period analyzed in this study. The Uruguayan campaign involved a large number of women’s organizations, received the support of key social actors, had a large media presence and gained strong public opinion support. In Argentina the campaign for abortion reform during the Kirchner administrations had a larger presence in the streets than that of Uruguay but lacked strength in other key dimensions, namely the support of key actors such as doctors. Moreover, its media presence was less prominent and public opinion remained divided over the issue. Unlike the cases of Uruguay and Argentina, which had clear campaigns demanding safe, free and legal abortion by request, in Chile there were multiple parallel initiatives with demands that varied in terms of abortion regulation, which contributed to the overall weakness of the movement for reform. Support from key social actors such as doctors, lawyers or unions was not present and the campaign for reform lacked visibility in the media and in society as a whole. Aside from measuring movement strength, it is necessary to consider movements’ goals and strategies. Social movements are sometimes wary of alliances with politicians.The fear of co-optation from political parties or government officials can discourage working very closely with the government.A strategy of collaboration usually creates internal divisions among activists who fear a decrease of autonomy or the moderation of their own demands.The Uruguayan movement

172 Conclusion

developed a clear strategy of collaboration with left-wing legislators in power and made this one of the pillars of the plan of action.This approach was possible because of the overwhelming identification of feminist activists with the Frente Amplio, which reduced the internal divisions around strategies. Argentina, however, presents a different case. Due to general mistrust of political parties,Argentine activists have been divided around whether to work with the government, and the different party allegiances within the movement became an obstacle to a unified decision. In Chile the divisions over moderate or more radical reform proposals mirrored those over whether to collaborate with the government as well, preventing a closer alliance with the Center-Left coalition in power. The building of a close collaboration between activists and legislators depends also on the institutional characteristics of the political system.A highly institutionalized party system allows the social movement to identify a clear interlocutor that can advance its demands of policy reform.When parties are programmatic – i.e., aligned along the ideological spectrum – movements have a better sense of who is on their side and who is not. Highly institutionalized party systems are more stable and thus links between activists and parties can evolve and ensure continuity such as in the case of Uruguay.This is made harder in low-institutionalized settings in which parties rise, fall and realign in the span of a few years, as in the case of Argentina. In particular, the characteristics of the left-wing party – if there is one – are highly relevant to progressive social movements such as that for abortion reform. A contraposition of the Chilean and Uruguayan Left makes this differentiation very clear. A secular party with roots in society and with strong feminist cadres such as the Uruguayan Frente Amplio will be more likely to be ready to work together with feminist activists towards policy changes such as abortion reform. The presence of party structures that prompt consultation with its bases has allowed the Frente Amplio to maintain the links with its constituents and relevant social movements. Strong feminist politicians such as Margarita Percovich and Mónica Xavier have brought to the party a gender perspective, and with this has come a strong connection with the feminist movement. Chile’s situation, by contrast, features a Center-Left coalition with no roots in society, but clear religious affiliations and fewer feminist cadres. This is the case of the parties of the Center-Left coalition, the Concertación/Nueva Mayoría. Interestingly, historically Chilean political parties had strong roots in society, but, as scholars have pointed out, since the 1990 democratization process parties have diminished their links with their bases (Luna 2007).To be sure, the Uruguayan Frente Amplio has also adapted to the new political scenario after the 1985 democratic transition and in the last decades has reached out to the constituents in the center of the ideological spectrum shifting into a more professional party. But unlike the Chilean left-wing parties, the Frente Amplio has been able to do this without abandoning its commitment to its bases. In addition, the presence of the Christian Democrats in the Chilean coalition, a party aligned with the Catholic Church on

Conclusion

173

social issues, has kept out a strong feminist presence and prevented the inclusion of controversial topics such as abortion in the government agenda for many years. Executive preferences and the balance of power between the Executive and Legislative branch are relevant as well. In the cases analyzed here there was no Executive that actively supported abortion on demand.This not only eliminated the possibility of collaboration between activists and the Executive branch to advance this reform, but had consequences for the possibility of collaboration with the Legislative branch, as can be seen in the contraposition of the Uruguay and Argentina cases under presidents Vázquez and Fernández de Kirchner. Despite the fact that President Vázquez strongly opposed abortion reform, his legislators were able to engage with abortion activists, introduce a bill in Congress and vote in favor of it with no political repercussions because of this country’s stronger division of powers. In addition, the presence of an institutionalized left-wing party with roots in society such as the Frente Amplio allowed the bases and members to establish the party’s agenda in relation to abortion independently of the president’s position on this issue.This case contrasts with that of President Fernández de Kirchner, whose personal position on abortion was in part responsible for blocking any congressional debate on the issue during both of her administrations, despite the presence of many legislators in favor of legalization within her party. In addition, the less institutionalized character of the Frente para la Victoria, which relies extensively on the party’s president to define policy preferences, contributed to the inability to secure congressional debate.The case of Chile shows how the formal and informal powers of the president can be put at the service of blocking but also advancing abortion reform. For most of the years after the 1990 democratization process, presidents from the Concertación used their powers to prevent abortion from entering the congressional agenda. During her second administration, Michelle Bachelet changed her preferences on this issue and decided to sponsor a bill to re-introduce therapeutic abortion in the country. She thus used the powers of her office to advance reform. The president’s extensive legislative powers in Chile allowed Bachelet to assign urgency to her abortion reform bill numerous times, pressuring Congress to discuss and vote on this bill. In this case, given the particular Executive preferences in favor of therapeutic abortion, the weak balance of powers between Executive and Legislative branches was conducive to achieving reform. Finally, within the debate of abortion reform, the power of the Catholic Church conditions the way politicians will position themselves towards the movements’ demands. A weak Church allows politicians in power more latitude in deciding whether to work together with the movement for abortion reform. The way politicians could ignore the Church’s pressures in Uruguay without fears of electoral consequences paved the way for ensuring their joint work with activists to advance abortion reform. A strong Church, on the other hand, puts pressure on politicians to reject any collaboration with feminist activists over fear of retaliation and loss of support.This was the case in both Chile and Argentina. In Chile,

174 Conclusion

the Church has multiple channels of exercising influence in the political system with allies in both the Right and Left electoral coalitions. The presence of the Christian Democrats within the Concertación and later Nueva Mayoría meant that most proposals against the Church’s social doctrine would be vetoed internally. The Church’s influence on the economic elite, particularly through media corporations aligned with Catholic conservative sectors, ensured the discussion of abortion had an overwhelming Catholic framing.Argentina, on the other hand, has no significant religiously affiliated political parties. However, the lack of a strict separation of Church and state – evidenced by the federal state funding of the Catholic Church – has maintained the continuous political influence of this institution in political matters. In addition, informal lobbying by Church officials takes place on a regular basis and the influence of these pressures is the largest on legislators and governors from the conservative areas of the country. In this sense, through both formal and informal channels, the Church has made its voice heard both in Chile and Argentina, limiting the margin for maneuver of legislators and executives alike when deciding whether to support feminist demands for abortion reform.

Implications of the Theoretical Model The theoretical model and the analysis of the three empirical cases contribute to the literatures on social movements and gender politics alike. In terms of the literature on social movements’ outcomes, the book confirms that a close collaboration between activists and allies in power increases the likelihood of policy reform in line with the movement’s demands.The book also advances the discussion on how the collaboration between activists and the Executive or Legislative branch work differently and under which conditions each of these alliances are more likely to emerge. Alliances between activists and the Executive are a rare event in general, and particularly so on controversial issues such as abortion. For one thing, they run the risk of leading to co-optation, with a great loss for the movement.This partly explains a general reticence among activists to embrace these collaborations. On the side of the Executive, an alliance with activists will be likely only if the issue receives ample support from constituents as a whole, as was the case with samesex marriage legislation in 2010 in Argentina. Another situation in which it is possible to see the Executive reaching out to social movements is if these alliances are perceived by the Executive as highlighting its commitment to a particular policy or vision of a country. This was the case of Néstor Kirchner’s alliance with the human rights movement in Argentina, which allowed him to signal his commitment to a progressive vision for the country, an embracing of justice and accountability and a necessary break with the 1990s to address the concerns of the 2001 popular mobilizations. In the case of abortion, the Executive’s commitment to feminist movements has been rare.This might be explained by the divisive character of the issue and the lack

Conclusion

175

of any consensus across national constituents in most Latin American countries, at least until very recently. In addition, the polarization created by the issue points to the need of a movement strong enough to make it attractive for the Executive to support this demand and not run major electoral risks.The Argentine “Green Tide” – in reference to the green scarves carried by activists – in 2018 proved that the issue of abortion reform can mobilize large parts of the population; the electoral calculations of Executive leaders might change in the near future. After all, the power of mobilization in the abortion reform movement has already changed the view of former president Cristina Fernández, who acknowledged as much by voting in favor of reform in the Senate in 2018. The newly elected Argentine president Alberto Fernández has already publicly stated his support for legalization.1 The interaction activists will have with his administration will make a good case for analyzing collaborations between activists and the Executive branch when the president is supportive of the movement’s demands since so few cases like these have been available in the past. In contrast to an alliance with the Executive branch, alliances with the Legislative branch offer the movement a number of opportunities for collaboration through each of the legislators. In addition, legislators can run larger risks in their electoral campaigns by supporting specific issues that might be appealing to limited constituencies, whereas presidential candidates need to appeal to the citizenry as a whole.A commitment with specific social movements could be costly. The theoretical model also differentiates the conditions that might make collaborations between activists and the Executive or Legislative branch more likely than the other.While the level of institutionalization of the party system and the characteristics of the left-wing party are relevant to a close collaboration between activists and legislators, these variables are not necessary for an alliance between the movement and the Executive. As highlighted by the theoretical model, the freedom legislators have to embrace social movements’ causes depends on the institutional characteristics of the political system such as the division of powers between the Executive and Legislative branches, as well as the institutional characteristics of their political parties, e.g., how much the agenda is influenced by the party president of the time or by the existence of internal institutions that discuss programs and platforms with their bases and members. These two factors show the difference between the case of the Uruguayan Frente Amplio and the leftwing parties in the other two countries. The differentiation of the conditions that define the probabilities of a close collaboration between activists and allies in power in the legislature or the Executive has important implications for the future of abortion reform in the region and in particular for movements’ strategies. Latin American countries seem to be in a catch-22 situation when abortion reform is introduced in their political agenda. The theoretical model calls for a highly institutionalized party system to allow for the development of an alliance between activists and the legislative branch that will increase the chances of reform. However, most countries in the

176 Conclusion

region have low-institutionalized party systems, Uruguay and Chile being the exceptions together with Mexico (Mainwaring 2018; Kitschelt et al. 2010).Thus, the existing institutional conditions make collaborations between movements and legislators less likely or at least more difficult to develop and succeed. Institutional variables are slow to change and thus harder to modify in the short term to increase the chances of abortion reform. In this context, Executive support for abortion reform becomes necessary for most Latin American countries. However, most Executives have until now opposed legal abortion, which might explain why reforms have been slow to happen. From the perspective of the movement and those committed to abortion reform this analysis might be quite pessimistic. However, the Argentine movement for abortion reform has demonstrated to the wider regional movement an array of strategies to deal with this apparently unmovable status quo.When Executive opposition during the Fernández de Kirchner administration was strong, the campaign established links with health ministries and the Judiciary in an effort to expand abortion access. In the absence of a strong left-wing party that could become the obvious ally in power, the movement appeared to be successful in creating links with legislators of different parties, building a cross-party alliance around the issue of abortion. In addition, the growth the movement experienced in the recent years and its constant presence in the streets have demonstrated the strength and power of mobilization, which have been noticed by many elected officials, some of whom, like former president Fernández de Kirchner, have shifted sides within the abortion debate. In this context the campaign managed to force the discussion of its bill in Congress by a right-wing president, showing that the assumption that you need a left-wing president to advance abortion reform might not always hold. The strategies displayed by the Argentine movement have proven successful in expanding abortion access and introducing the reform bill in the congressional agenda in 2018.The strategies have not, however, been successful enough to pass the bill – at least not yet. Despite their lack of success, the accomplishments have been many and might have been necessary “holding” steps to ensure the passing of reform in the near future, when other variables, such as Executive preferences, may shift in their favor. It is worth remembering that even in the case of Uruguay, in which most factors aligned favorably for reform, legal abortion only passed after the third try. Given how hard it has been to achieve legal reform in Latin America, feminist activists have developed new strategies to advance abortion rights (Ruibal and Fernández Anderson 2018).Within a variety of new approaches, one that stands out has been the provision of information and accompaniment on how to induce your own abortion, both through hotlines and abortion doula services.The discovery of the drug Misoprostol as a safe way of inducing abortions opened up new possibilities for activists. Las libres in Mexico and the Socorristas in Argentina are some of the feminist organizations that have been offering these services to

Conclusion

177

women living in countries in which the law still prevents access to abortion on demand. In this case social movements decide to act on the problem on their own and chose not to target the state with their demands waiting for an answer. In this sense, these strategies are beyond the focus of this book, which is interested in the interaction between activists and state officials.They are, however, a strong and growing strand within feminist movements, and as such deserve the attention of academic studies as well.

Generalizability: Moving Beyond the Three Case Studies The theoretical model proposed in this book to explain the politics of abortion in the Southern Cone can, in a sense, travel in different directions. It can explain other cases of abortion rights movements and their interactions with state allies under left-wing governments in the region, such as the cases of Mexico City and Brazil. It can also be extended to other gender policies such as the movements to legalize divorce and same-sex marriage.And finally, it can be useful to analyze the interactions between other kinds of social movement and sympathetic allies in power. In this section I provide some examples of the model’s application to some of these cases. Two other Latin American countries offer fertile ground for testing the theoretical model: Mexico and Brazil. An analysis of the strength of these countries’ feminist movements, their party systems, characteristics of the left-wing parties and Executive preferences together with the power of the Catholic Church may shed new light on why collaboration between activists and allies in power was possible in the case of Mexico City but not in Brazil. The 2007 legalization of abortion in Mexico City and the recent similar process in the state of Oaxaca make a good starting point. Previous studies of the Mexico City reform refer to the presence of collaboration between civil society organizations and left-wing legislators in power as a significant factor for the reform’s final approval (Sanchez Fuentes et al. 2008). The reproductive rights organization GIRE (Information Group on Reproductive Choice) worked closely with left-wing legislators from the PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution) to ensure this outcome.The existence of a strong tradition of separation of Church and state in the country, thanks to the Mexican revolution, had created a context propitious for abortion reform.The support of the mayor of Mexico City at the time, Marcelo Ebrard from the PRD, helped the cause too. Finally, the fact that Mexico has a highly institutionalized party system with three parties aligned along the ideological spectrum – PAN to the right, PRI at the center and PRD to the left (Green and Sanchez Talanquer 2018) – contributed to the availability of clear interlocutors for social movements such as abortion rights organizations. The same factors also illustrate Brazil’s failure to develop a close collaboration between activists and the PT (Workers’ Party) to advance abortion reform during the governments of Lula da Silva (2003–2010) and Dilma Rousseff (2011–2016).

178 Conclusion

The lack of support for abortion reform among left-wing Executives coupled with the growth of the Evangelical caucus in Congress have been significant obstacles to any abortion reform. Brazil’s party system institutionalization has been low with high electoral volatility, frequent party switching by politicians and weak linkages between parties and voters (Mainwaring 2018).Within this party system the PT has been an exception, displaying historically strong roots in society, strong party identifiers and a clear ideology on the left of the ideological spectrum.The links between PT and society have, however, been decreasing throughout the last decades and scholars have highlighted how the party has recently de-emphasized grassroots organizations and reduced ties with popular movements with the goal of broadening its constituencies (Levitsky and Roberts 2011).This might have in fact diminished the chances of the abortion rights movement finding clear allies within the political system. The theoretical model can travel beyond cases of movements for abortion reform into other realms of gender politics, as well. The literature on gender politics has devoted considerable attention to the role of women’s movements and women within the state in advancing gender equality policies (Haas 2010; Banaszak 2010; Lycklama et al. 1998;Waylen et al. 2013; Htun and Weldon 2012 and 2018). In fact, some scholars have particularly emphasized the relevance of the interaction between women in and outside the state (Lyklama et al. 1998; Htun 2003; Haas 2010; Ewig and Ferree 2013). Htun has shown how issue networks that include feminist activists with, among others, legislators and state officials were behind the passage of reforms on divorce and family law in Argentina and Brazil (2003). Extending this analysis beyond women’s movements, Diez has shown how close working relationships between LGBTQ activists and state allies have been a significant factor in ensuring same-sex marriage reform (2015). Given the importance of collaborations between activists and state allies for the passage of reform in many realms of the field of gender politics, the theoretical model of this book could be applied to these other cases to understand if the same variables that explained the cases of abortion reform were behind the construction of successful alliances that led to the passage of other policy reforms. In addition, the theoretical model can travel beyond gender politics to explain the interaction of other kinds of social movements with sympathetic allies in power. Given that the present model was designed to explain abortion reform, the Catholic Church has a prominent role in determining the possibilities of collaboration. If we were to use similar categories to explain the dynamics between any progressive social movement and government allies, the power of other institutions or actors outside the political system that oppose the social movement’s demands might be considered instead: Business sectors if dealing with workers’ rights movements; lobbying organizations like the NRA (National Rifle Association) if dealing with gun control legislation; the armed forces when addressing human rights movements’ demands for truth, justice and accountability.The formal and informal power that these organizations receive from the political system

Conclusion

179

and the reach they have both in society and political elites might be measured, as it was for the Catholic Church in this study of abortion reform.The literature on transitional justice in Latin America, for example, has engaged in the analysis of the power of the armed forces in explaining state policy that varied from the organization of truth commissions and trials against those responsible for crimes against humanity in Argentina, to the lack of accountability mechanisms present in Brazil (Hunter 1994; Barahona de Brito 1997; Lessa et al. 2014). Following this literature, the theoretical model in this book might explain the factors behind the lack of collaboration between human rights activists and government allies with attention to the power of the armed forces in influencing political matters, and the institutional characteristics of the political system that lead to these alliances. The model is set up mostly to explain the dynamics of progressive movements and as such mostly analyzes left-wing parties and the particular characteristics they display. Could this model work to explain reactionary movements? I believe so. In this case an analysis of right-wing governments and parties would replace that of actors on the Left. Still, similar characteristics would need to be considered: Whether the right-wing party has roots in society; its relationship with actors outside the political system such as business organizations, and their specific characteristics such as their religious or secular character; the party’s allegiance to conservative or liberal values in the realms of the economy and social and moral issues. An analysis of the advancement of anti-choice groups in Latin America, their links to allies in power, the institutional framework that allows this to happen and the power of Catholic and Evangelical churches could make good use of the current theoretical model.

Beyond the Pink Tide: Collaboration and Abortion Reform under Right-Wing Governments Left-wing governments, which took power in most of the countries in the region in the first decade of the twenty-first century, interacted with the movements for abortion reform in diverse ways.While some facilitated abortion reform such as in the case of Chile and Uruguay, others supported increased restrictions such as in Nicaragua and El Salvador, while still others maintained the existing legislation like those in Argentina and Brazil. By the end of the second decade of the new century, however, the Pink Tide has come to an end. Right-wing governments have come to power in Argentina (2015), Brazil (2016), Ecuador (2017), Chile (2018) and Uruguay (2019). How is this shift to the Right affecting abortion reform in the region? The 2018 debate on abortion reform in Argentina under Macri’s Center-Right government (2015–2019) provides a good place to begin to answer this question. On March 8 of that year the biggest ever Women’s Day protest took place in Argentina, where hundreds of thousands of women marched for gender equality and legal abortion, and against femicide.2 In large part a reaction to the unprecedented

180 Conclusion

growth of feminist mobilization, during the months of April and August of 2018 the Argentine Congress discussed abortion reform for the first time since the approval of the Criminal Code that criminalized the practice in most circumstances in 1921. After introducing a bill legalizing abortion on demand in the first trimester for the seventh time, the campaign for legal, free and safe abortion finally saw the bill being discussed in Congress. The bill was approved in the Lower Chamber in June of 2018, only to later be rejected by the Senate in August of the same year. How does the theoretical framework and empirical research presented in this book address the recent events in Argentina? As the following discussion shows, a shift in some of the model’s variables can explain the existence of collaboration between activists and legislators under a right-wing government.The presence of a right-wing administration will provide fewer opportunities for the movement to collaborate with the government – limiting it mostly to creating links with progressive legislators in Congress. But the movement’s strength, the characteristics of the party system and political parties, the Executive preferences and the power of the Catholic Church are still relevant in explaining what kind of relationship the movement was able to establish with both the governing party and the opposition.

Argentina: The Green Tide and the 2018 Debate on Abortion Reform In February 2018, the largest ever demonstrations by women’s organizations took place across the country, demanding the discussion of the campaign’s bill on abortion reform. Surprising both supporters and opponents, President Mauricio Macri gave the green light for Congress to open up the debate:“I am in favor of life but I do not impose these views on anybody.There is freedom of conscience,” he said to his party members in a meeting in the presidential residency. Highlighting the separation of powers and his respect for republican values, he added:“It is a congressional debate, we will be watching from the distance.”3 Some days later, at the opening of the 2018 congressional sessions, he stated abortion will be on the government agenda for the year: It’s been 75 years that we have been delaying a very sensitive debate that we owe to ourselves as a society: that of abortion. As I said many times, I am in favor of life, but I am also in favor of mature and responsible debates that we need to have as Argentineans.4 This bold political move has been interpreted in many ways. Opposition parties and the Catholic Church immediately denounced this move as a diversion strategy to shift attention away from unpopular economic measures, accusations of corruptions towards Macri’s cabinet and the intensification of the economic

Conclusion

181

crisis. An analysis of his party’s track record on reproductive rights seems to back up this interpretation. While serving as mayor of Buenos Aires, Macri vetoed a protocol that would have improved access to legal abortions. As president he has reduced the budget and personnel for the Reproductive Rights Program under the National Health Ministry, and his party opposed the ratification of CEDAW in 2006. Most of the main party leaders, including his vice president Gabriela Michetti, have openly opposed the legalization of abortion. Others saw his decision as a direct challenge to the Catholic Church. Under the leadership of Pope Francis, the Argentine Church has been increasingly critical of the government’s neoliberal policies and their devastating consequences in terms of poverty and inequality. Despite the government’s party conservative credentials around moral issues that mostly align with the Catholic doctrine, as opposed to his predecessor John Paul II, Pope Francis has chosen to prioritize social justice issues. Given the already critical and tense relations between the government and the Church, Macri had nothing to lose. A final interpretation of Macri’s decision has to do with the grieta (crack) that has been dividing Argentine society during the last decade: Kirchnerists versus anti-kirchnerists. Macri’s decision to open up the debate placed him in direct contrast to Cristina Fernández’s opposition to including abortion in the congressional agenda, highlighting his pluralism and openness to dialogue next to his predecessor’s censorship of congressional activity and open disrespect for the division of power among government branches. While these are all plausible explanations, this book’s theoretical model offers new insights into Macri’s decision and the events that developed throughout 2018. Some of the model’s variables remained constant and saw no change through the transition from a left-wing to a right-wing administration, such as the institutional variables. Other variables, however, have changed dramatically, such as the strength of the campaign for safe, free and legal abortion. Finally, others changed slightly, such as Executive preferences and the power of the Catholic Church, but have generated different political dynamics in the context of a right-wing coalition being in power, compared to the left-leaning party in power during the period of the Pink Tide. The main factor that dramatically changed the possibilities of collaboration between the movement and its allies was the tremendous increase of strength of the campaign for legal, safe and free abortion.The significant growth of the campaign can be attributed to the growth of a broader movement: Feminism. Feminist understandings and analysis of women’s reality were brought to the forefront particularly with the increased number of femicides that inspired the movement Ni una menos,5 a grassroots collective fighting to put an end to violence against women.This movement emerged in 2015 and has since changed the way society views violence against women, increasingly adopting a feminist lens. The global “#MeToo” movement reached Argentina in 2017, strengthening the local Ni una menos movement even more.The campaign for abortion reform was able to

182 Conclusion

capitalize on this moment and define abortion as another case of violence against women and femicide, making the state responsible for the lack of action when faced with preventable deaths from unsafe abortion. Within this context of rising feminism, the movement for abortion reform and particularly the campaign has seen an increase in all the indicators of strength. From an average of 300 organizations within the campaign in the early years, there were more than 550 organizations that took part in it in 2018.The size of the campaign’s demonstrations swelled significantly: As noted above, hundreds of thousands of activists mobilized on March 8, 2018 to support the inclusion of the bill in the congressional agenda.6 Parallel to the increase of numbers of people in the streets, the presence of the campaign in the media grew significantly. Feminist journalist Luciana Peker attributes the strength that the movement for abortion reform gained in 2018 to the change within the media:“When the TV is an ally it moves the issue forward. When the TV is conservative it makes rights recede” (Alcaraz 2019). Throughout this year, feminist scholars were invited to talk shows to discuss feminism and the legalization of abortion.7 Prime-time television shows had actresses wear the green scarf of the campaign as they played their roles. Print media showed a similar growth in coverage. In the past only left-wing newspaper Página 12 had actively followed the trajectory of the campaign. But in 2018 other mainstream newspapers such as Clarín and La Nación began to cover movement activities. In the five years prior to 2018, Clarín dedicated between 8 and 18 articles a year to the issue of abortion; in the first two months of 2018 – this being before the bill was introduced in Congress – Clarín published 30 articles on the campaign’s bill.8 The increased visibility of the campaign in the media and the streets also pushed many new social actors to take a stand on the abortion debate, the majority of them choosing to support legalization. Numerous groups organized through their professions to express their support for the campaign:Actors, journalists, psychologists, teachers. Particularly strong has been the participation of a collective of actresses for abortion reform.Actresses such as Dolores Fonzi, Carla Peterson and Griselda Siciliani became spokespersons for the campaign in the media, as well as active lobbyists in Congress once the bill was under discussion.9 The election of Mauricio Macri in 2015 brought to the Executive branch a president who did not dramatically change the variable “Executive preferences”: Both Cristina Fernández and Macri publicly expressed their opposition to the legalization of abortion. However, the way each of them acted upon their personal positions was different, altering the value of this variable. Cristina Fernández prevented abortion from entering the congressional agenda despite many of her legislators being supportive of the campaign’s demands. Her presence in the Executive branch constrained the freedom of action of legislators from her party, Frente para la Victoria, who chose to either censor their commitments to abortion reform, or to express them knowing that lacking Executive support the battle would be hard to win.

Conclusion

183

On the contrary, despite his opposition to abortion, Macri decided to allow the debate in Congress. While opposition to abortion reform in the Executive branch remained constant, his willingness to open the congressional debate on this issue changed the dynamics between the Executive and Legislative branch by freeing many kirchnerist legislators from the constraints they had in the previous administration around abortion. This shift allowed these left-wing legislators to openly and actively lobby and work towards abortion legalization alongside the campaign activists. Having said this, during the Macri administration, the lack of support for abortion reform from the Executive branch remained an obstacle and became in large part one of the main reasons why the reform ultimately failed. Drawing a parallel with the passing of same-sex marriage in 2010, the final votes needed for the approval of a controversial legislation would have to be obtained through the pressure of the president and party leader of the majority block. In the case of LGBT rights, it was Cristina Fernández’s position in favor of reform that ended up tilting the position of many within her party who were not committed to this issue before. And for those who still were reluctant to vote in favor, Cristina Fernández took them away on a business trip to China so that the threshold for approval would be lower. In the case of the 2018 abortion debate, Macri gave the green light for the discussion to take place but his personal opposition to abortion created no incentive for his legislators to vote in favor of the bill; in fact, it had quite the opposite effect.As former Frente para la Victoria legislator Axel Kicillof stated when he voted in favor of the abortion bill: It is not enough to open the debate.When Congress voted on the divorce law [president] Alfonsín didn’t go to sleep. When Néstor and Cristina [Kirchner] opened the debate for same-sex marriage, they didn’t go to sleep.This is a political issue and it is necessary to make a political decision and this is their responsibility today. (Alcaraz 2019: 246) In the end, the bill was rejected in the Senate by only seven votes (38 to 31), and the government coalition Cambiemos10 provided 17 of the 38 negative votes. Had the president been in favor of abortion reform and actively mobilized support from his own party, the few votes needed might have been there. Institutional variables are slow to change and have thus remained the same despite the change of government. However, the abortion rights movement was able to take advantage of this same institutional context in a different way under the Macri administration. As discussed in Chapter 4, Argentina has a low institutionalized party system in which political parties are not programmatic and thus not aligned along the ideological continuum.As a consequence, that has precluded a stable clear alliance between feminist organizations and relevant political parties, but it has also prevented a collaboration between anti-choice organizations and

184 Conclusion

right-wing political parties. Conservative forces have lacked a democratic political expression for most of the twentieth century and have instead supported the military and the recurrent coups when the elected government threatened their interests. The lack of a strong right-wing party until the emergence of Macri’s PRO in 2010 prevented the anti-choice movement from having a stable ally in power. In contrast with the case of Uruguay, in which the position on abortion is defined by the ideology of the different parties – the right-wing Partido Blanco against legalization and left-wing Frente Amplio in favor of it – in Argentina, the issue of abortion has divided parties throughout.The campaign thus took advantage of this fact and worked towards building a multi-party coalition to back its bill for abortion reform.The particularities of the governing coalition Cambiemos allowed it to find numerous supporters within the government legislators. Even though PRO has been the most successful right-wing party since the return to democracy in 1983, it lacked presence in all the national territory and, as such, was not strong enough to win presidential elections on its own. In light of the 2015 presidential elections and with the goal of beating the kirchnerist Frente para la Victoria, Macri allied with the centrist party UCR creating the alliance. The UCR has traditionally been divided on the issue of abortion but within its ranks there have been many voices that have historically supported legalization (such as Florentina Gómez Miranda). Many current legislators picked up on that tradition and were available as allies for the campaign. UCR legislators such as Brenda Austin and Karina Banfi were firm supporters of the campaign’s bill. But support for the campaign within Macri’s government did not come exclusively from the UCR. Even within the PRO there was some variation of voices with regard to moral issues (Morresi and Vommaro 2014) and two of the main advocates for legal abortion in the 2018 debate – Daniel Lipovetzky and Silvia Lospennato – were PRO legislators. Although this party harbors in its ranks some traditional conservative voices aligned with the Catholic Church that claim to defend “family values,” the PRO also includes politicians that are liberal in both economic and social issues, supporting the non-intervention of the state in a private matter such as abortion. In this context, the campaign was able to find allies in the Cambiemos coalition, particularly among the UCR but also a few within PRO that were very vocal, as well among opposition parties such as Frente para la Victoria, now freed from the presence of former president Cristina Fernández. In Argentina the party system prevented both sides of the abortion debate from finding clear interlocutors in the party system. With the growth of the feminist movement an opportunity emerged for the campaign to create a multi-party alliance for abortion reform.This could have been done by the anti-choice side, too, but the power of the movement tipped the balance in favor of abortion reform, reducing the political costs historically associated with this position.This allowed the creation of a multi-party alliance for abortion reform that under a right-wing government fared very well, despite being unable to succeed in the

Conclusion

185

passing of its bill. One of the main obstacles seemed to have been the opposition of the Executive. In October 2019 Argentina held presidential elections and the peronist candidate Alberto Fernández won with Cristina Fernández de Kirchner running as vice president. President Alberto Fernández has expressed numerous times his support for the legalization of abortion.11 In November 2019 before taking power he showed up unannounced at an event organized by the campaign.When asked to come to the podium and say some words, he expressed his support for abortion reform.12 This will be the first time a Latin American country has a president that openly advocates for the legalization of abortion by request. The scenario in Argentina seems propitious for abortion reform to be approved in the next few years.The current strength of the movement, the collaboration that has already been set in motion since the 2018 congressional debate plus the support of the president might be strong enough forces to defeat any opposition from the Catholic and Evangelical churches, even with the presence of an Argentine pope in the Vatican.

Future Steps I hope that the analysis in this book has generated new research questions for future projects, particularly in two areas:The dynamics of counter-movements, and the relationship between activism and right-wing governments. How do counter-movements, in this case the anti-choice movement, relate to their allies in power? Do similar conditions affect the relationships between abortion rights activists and allies in power to those between anti-choice forces and their supporters in power? Is there a difference in the set-up of these collaborations if the goal is defending the status quo rather than advancing reform? The study of the factors that explain the collaboration between activists and allies in power calls for the equally interesting study of the possibilities of alliances between a counter-movement and those sympathetic to these counter-demands.The book provides a limited analysis of the counter-movement through the study of the power of the Catholic Church, but future studies would need to provide in-depth research of other religious organizations like Evangelical churches and non-religious anti-choice organizations as well and how receptive the political system is to their demands. The 2018 abortion debate in Argentina has opened up new lines of research related to the possibilities of movement activism, collaboration with allies in power and policy change under right-wing governments. The literature on social movements outcomes has mostly dealt with the political context in which a movement develops through the concept of “political opportunity” and the notion of the ideological identification of the party in power has been one key element that defined the possibilities for mobilization and reform. While leftwing governments, for the most part, have been assumed to create environments more propitious for policy change, the case of Argentina in 2018 defies these

186 Conclusion

assumptions and calls for a more nuanced analysis of the relationship between government ideology and movement mobilization, strategies, alliances and impact on public policy each as a separate dependent variable.

Notes 1. See Página 12,“Alberto Fernández sobre el aborto legal:Va a salir.” November 15, 2019. 2. See Clarín, “Hubo record de gente por el 8M y el aborto legal fue el principal reclamo.” March 9, 2018. See Página 12,“El futuro ya llegó.” March 9, 2018. 3. See Clarín,“La nueva agenda parlamentaria. Mauricio Macri y la ley del aborto. Estoy a favor de la vida pero no se lo impongo a nadie.” February 26, 2018. 4. See Telam,“Macri sobre el aborto: estoy a favor de la vida pero tambien de los debates maduros y responsables.”Telam on youtube. 5. Ni una menos translates to “not one fewer” and it refers to the fact the movement won’t tolerate femicide anymore. 6. See Clarín, “Hubo record de gente por el 8M y el aborto legal fue el principal reclamo.” March 9, 2018. 7. See television show Intrusos, January 25, 2018 at www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PSwvAYD94&t=56s. 8. Based on media database built by author. 9. See Página 12,“Salir a escena por el aborto. Decenas de actrices sumaron su apoyo con actividades frente al Congreso.”April 20, 2018. 10. The government coalition Cambiemos (“Let’s change”) that elected Mauricio Macri to the presidency in 2015 is integrated by the following parties: PRO (Republican Proposal), UCR (Radical Civic Union) and CC-ARI (Civic Coalition). 11. See Clarín,“Alberto Fernández sobre el aborto:Tengo la decisión política de legalizarlo.” August 13, 2019. 12. See Página 12,“Alberto Fernández sobre el aborto legal:Va a salir.” November 15, 2019.

Bibliography Alcaraz, Maria Florencia. 2019. ¡Que sea ley! La lucha de los feminismos por el aborto legal. Buenos Aires: Editorial Marea. Banaszak, Lee Ann. 2010. The Women’s Movement Inside and Outside the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barahona de Brito, Alexandra. 1997. Human Rights and Democratization in Latin America: Uruguay and Chile. New York: Oxford University Press. Diez, Jordi. 2015. The Politics of Gay Marriage in Latin America: Argentina, Chile and Mexico. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ewig, Christina and Myra Ferree. 2013. “Feminist Organizing: What’s Old, What’s New? History,Trends, and Issues” In Georgina Waylen et al., eds. The Oxford Handbook of Gender Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Green, Kenneth and Mariano Sanchez Talanquer. 2018.“Authoritarian Legacies and Party System Stability in Mexico.” In Scott Mainwaring, ed. Party Systems in Latin America: Institutionalization, Decay and Collapse. New York: Cambridge University Press. Haas, Liesl. 2010.Feminist Policymaking in Chile. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press. Heumann, Silke and Jan Willem Duyvendak. 2015. “When and Why Religious Groups become Political Players:The Pro-Life Movement in Nicaragua.” In James Jasper and Jan Willem Duyvendak, eds. Players and Arenas:The Interactive Dynamics of Protest. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Conclusion

187

Htun, Mala. 2003. Sex and the State: Abortion, Divorce and the Family under Latin American Dictatorships and Democracies. New York: Cambridge University Press. Htun, Mala and Laurel Weldon. 2012. “The Civic Origins of Progressive Policy Change: Combating Violence against Women in Global Perspective, 1975–2005.” American Political Science Review 106 (3): 548–569. Htun, Mala and Laurel Weldon. 2018. The Logics of Gender Justice: State Action on Women’s Rights Around the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hunter,Wendy. 1994. “Contradictions of Civilian Control: Argentina, Brazil and Chile in the 1990s.” Third World Quarterly 15 (4): 633–653. Kampwirth, Karen. 2008. “Abortion, Antifeminism, and the Return of Daniel Ortega: In Nicaragua, Leftist Politics?” Latin American Perspectives 35: 122–136. Kitschelt, Herbert, Kirk Hawkins, Juan Pablo Luna, Guillermo Tosas and Elizabeth Zechmeister. 2010. Latin American Party Systems. New York: Cambridge University Press. Levitsky, Steven and Kenneth Roberts. 2011. The Resurgence of the Latin American Left. Baltimore, MD:The Johns Hopkins University Press. Lessa, Francesca, Tricia Olsen, Leigh Payne, Gabriel Pereira and Andre Reiter. 2014. “Overcoming Impunity: Pathways to Accountability in Latin America.” The International Journal of Transitional Justice 8: 75–98. Lycklama a Nijehold, Geertje,Virginia Vargas and Saskia Wieringa. 1998. Women’s Movements and Public Policy in Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. New York: Garland Publishing Inc. Luna, Juan Pablo. 2007.“Frente Amplio and the Crafting of a Social Democratic Alternative in Uruguay.” Latin American Politics & Society 49 (4): 1–30. Mainwaring, Scott. 2018. Party Systems in Latin America: Institutionalization, Decay and Collapse. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Morresi, Sergio and Gabriel Vommaro. 2014.“The Difficulties of the Partisan Right and the Case of Propuesta Republicana.” In Juan Pablo Luna and Cristobal Rovira Raltwasser, eds. Resilience of the Latin American Right. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Ruibal, Alba and Cora Fernández Anderson. 2018. “Legal Obstacles and Social Change: Strategies of the Abortion Rights Movement in Argentina.” Politics, Groups and Identities. DOI: 10.1080/21565503.2018.1541418. Sanchez Fuentes, Maria Luisa, Jennifer Paine and Brook Elliot Buettner. 2008. “The Decriminalization of Abortion in Mexico City: How Did Abortion Rights become a Political Priority?” Gender and Development 16 (2): 345–360. Waylen, Georgina, Karen Celis, Johanna Kantola and Laurel Weldon. 2013. The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

INDEX

Page numbers in bold denote tables. abortion stigma 36, 41, 44–5, 48, 91, 161 Alanis, M. 139 Alfonsín, R. 57, 58, 131, 134, 183 Alinco, R. 110 Allende, S. 52, 98, 105 American Convention on Human Rights 45, 46, 47, 144 APROFA (Asociación para la Protección de la Familia) 110, 111 Argentina: campaign for abortion reform in 142–7; Catholic Church in 135–8; executive branch in 134–5; and green tide 180–5; political parties in 132–4; and regulation of abortion 56–60; separation of powers in 134–5; women’s movement in 138–42 ARI (Asociación para una República de Iguales) 158 Argibay, C. 151 Argimón, B. 85 Ausburger, S. 158 Aylwin, P. 53, 103, 116 Bachelet, M.: and abortion reform 10, 53–5, 102, 109, 112, 113, 115, 119–23, 173; and women’s movements 1, 97; and morning after pill 108 Batlle, J. 50, 84, 85, 86, 91 Batlle y Ordoñez, J. 49, 71 Beramendi, C. 73, 83

Bergoglio, J. 156 Bordaberry, J. 68 Brazil 34, 40, 41, 77, 170, 177–8, 179 Cambiemos 134, 149, 183, 184 campaign to legalize abortion: in Argentina 142–7, 180–5; in Chile 108–15; in Uruguay 75–80 Carbajal, M. 146 Casas, L. 111 Catholic Church: in Argentina 131, 132, 135–7, 141, 146, 147, 150, 151, 154, 156, 161, 180, 181, 184; in Chile 98, 99, 101, 102–4, 109, 117, 121; and colonization 33; and evangelicals 40; and gender 36–9, 42–3, 48; power of 19–20, 173; in Uruguay 66, 67, 68, 71–2, 79, 91 Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir (Catholics for Choice): in Argentina 139, 142; in Chile 108, 114, 118; in Uruguay 74, 75 CEDAW (Convention to Eliminate Discrimination Against Women) 116, 152 CEDES (Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad) 153 CGT (Confederación General del Trabajo) 144 Chile: campaign for abortion reform in 108–15; Catholic Church in 102–4;

Index

executive branch in 101–2; political parties in 99–101; and regulation of abortion 52–6; separation of powers in 101–2; women’s movement in 104–8 Christian Democrats 18, 38, 68, 99, 100, 101, 103, 120, 123, 172, 174; see also PDC CLADEM 61, 74, 75, 82, 85, 94 Coalición Cívica 158, 159 Coledesky, D. 139 Colegio de Matronas y Matrones de Chile 112, 119 Colombia 32, 41, 120, 169 CNS (Comisión Nacional de Seguimiento por Democracia, Equidad y Ciudadanía) 74, 75, 85, 88 Concertación 24, 81, 101; and abortion reform 110, 116, 117, 119, 122, 173; characteristics of 69, 99, 100, 104, 172; and the Catholic Church 174; and feminism 107, 115; history of 109, 118; see also Nueva Mayoría Concertación Nacional de Mujeres 74, 106 Coordinadora Feministas en Lucha 110, 114, 123 Corporación La Morada 110 Costa Rica 40 Comisión por el Derecho al Aborto 141, 149 CTA (Confederación de Trabajadores de Argentina) 144 Cuba 4, 22, 33, 66 Da Silva, L.I. 177 De la Rua, F. 58, 131, 151 Dides, C. 1, 120, 121, 122 Di Tullio, J. 157 Dominican Republic 22, 33, 34, 169 Ebrard, M. 177 Ecuador 41, 179 elite allies 2, 13–15 El Salvador 22, 32, 33, 34, 35, 39, 45, 169, 179 Encuentro Nacional de Mujeres 140, 142, 143, 146, 147, 155, 156 Enriquez Ominami, M. 118 Evangelicals 36, 39–40, 121, 169, 179, 185; caucus in Brazi 178 Evolución 158 executive preferences 18–19, 173, 176; in Argentina 134–5, 182–3; in Chile 101–2; in Uruguay 70–1, 85

189

F.A.L. case 57, 159–60 Fernández, A. 175, 185 Fernández de Kirchner, C. 11, 24, 130, 131, 134, 149, 156, 171, 176; and abortion bills 59, 159; and abortion reform 153–5, 173, 176; and Catholic Church 156; and grieta 132; and same sex marriage 8, 183; vice-president 185; and women’s movements 148 FIT (Frente de Izquierda y de los Trabajadores) 158 Frei, E. 53, 103 Frente Amplio 1, 10, 24, 51, 67, 82, 91, 173, 175; and abortion reform 50, 82–4, 86, 88, 184; characteristics of 69–70, 100; in Chile 123; and feminism 66, 73, 74, 81, 84, 85, 107, 172; history of 68; and unions 77; and Vazquez’ veto 87, 89, 90 Foro de Derechos Reproductivos (Argentina) 142, 159 Foro de Salud Sexual y Derechos Reproductivos (Chile) 108, 110, 114, 115 FpV (Frente para la Victoria) 28, 135, 150, 157, 158, 173, 182, 183, 184 gender ideology 23, 40 gender quotas 14; in Argentina 141, 150; in Chile 100, 106, 109 GIRE (Grupo de Información en Reproducción Elegida) 177 González García, G. 151, 152, 155 Green Tide 145, 175, 180 Guatemala 14, 39, 40 Honduras 22, 33, 169 Iniciativas Sanitarias 34, 76 institutionalization of the party system 17; in Argentina 132–3; in Chile 99; in Uruguay 68 Inter-American Commission of Human Rights 32, 34, 122 issue networks 2, 6, 11, 12, 13, 178 Kirchner, N. 11, 24, 130, 131, 134, 149, 171; and abortion bills 58, 159; and abortion reform 150–3; and Catholic Church 156; and human rights movement 174; and same sex marriage 183; and women’s movements 148 Kirchnerismo, kirchnerist 134, 135, 148, 156, 157, 181, 183, 184

190 Index

Lacalle, L. 50 Lagos, R. 53 Las Libres 176 left wing parties 17–18; in Argentina 132–4; in Brazil 177–8; in Chile 99–101; in Mexico 177–8; in Uruguay 68–70 Legionaries of Christ 103, 104, 137 LGBT movement 47, 48; in Argentina 8, 144, 183; in Uruguay 75; see also MOVILH Liberation Theology 43 Libres del Sur 158 Lipovetzky, D. 137, 184 Lospennato, S. 137, 184 Macri, M. 8, 25, 59, 130, 149, 157, 170, 179–84 MADEL (Mujeres Autoconvocadas para Decidir en Libertad) 142, 150, 155 Madres de Plaza de Mayo 45, 47, 139, 140 Manzur, J. 155 maternal mortality 34, 49, 50, 75, 85, 161; in Argentina 60; in Chile 56; in Uruguay 51 Menem, C. 58, 134, 137, 141, 142, 145, 149, 150, 151, 155; see also menemismo Menemismo 134; see also Menem, C Mesa de Acción por el Aborto 110, 111, 123 Methodist Church 76, 144 Mexico 10, 32, 34, 39, 41, 170, 176 Mexico City 19, 33, 169, 170, 177 Mexico City Policy 23 MILEs (Miles por la interrupción legal del embarazo) 1, 21, 114; abortion bill 55, 98, 100, 105, 110, 119, 121; and Bachelet’s government 115, 120, 122, 123; strategies 111, 112, 113 Misoprostol 34, 35, 43, 58, 59, 91, 160, 176 Movement strength 15–16 MOVILH (Movimiento de Integración y Liberación Homosexual) 110, 111, 119 Movimiento Evita 158 Mujica, J. and abortion reform 50, 51, 70, 89, 91 Multisectorial de la Mujer 140 Muñoz, A. 100, 110, 117, 119 MYSU (Mujer y Salud Uruguay) 1, 74, 75, 76, 80, 85, 86 Nicaragua 19, 33, 39, 40, 169, 179 Nueva Mayoría 99, 109, 122, 123, 164, 172, 174; see also Concertación

Oaxaca 33, 170, 177 Ocaña, G. 155 Opus Dei 71, 103, 104, 137 Pact of San Jose de Costa Rica: see American Convention on Human Rights Partido Blanco 49, 50, 68, 72, 85, 86, 184 Partido Colorado 49, 40, 68, 72, 82–6 Partido Socialista de Argentina 134, 149, 158 Partido Socialista de Uruguay 71, 88 PDC (Partido Demócrata Cristiano) 99, 101, 103, 120, 121; see also Christian Democrats Percovich, M. 50, 66, 70, 73, 82–8, 172 Peronism 132, 133, 134, 150, 154, 158, 185; see also PJ Pink Tide 13, 14, 66, 147, 151, 169, 170, 179, 181 Pinochet, A. 10, 47, 53, 97, 98, 99, 101, 103, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 113 Piñera, S. 55, 56, 109 PIT CNT 76, 77 Plenario Mujeres de Uruguay (PLEMU) 73 PJ (Partido Justicialista) 132, 150; and abortion reform 149, 158; characteristics of 134; and Catholic Church 136; history of 133; see also Peronism Pope Francis 121, 156, 181; see also Bergoglio, J PPD (Partido por la Democracia) 53–5, 99, 100, 110, 116, 118, 119 PRD (Partido de la Revolución Democrática) 177 PRO (Propuesta Republicana) 134, 136, 137, 158, 184 Proyecto Sur 158 PS (Partido Socialista Chileno) 10, 69, 98, 99; and abortion reform 107, 109, 116, 118, 119; characteristics of 100, 123 PT (Partido de Trabalhadores) 177, 178 Red de Profesionales de la Salud por el Derecho a Decidir 145 RN (Renovación Nacional) 99, 54 Rodríguez, M. 159 Roe v. Wade 43, 170 Rondan, G. 84, 85 Rosenberg, M. 143 Ruda 76

Index

Saa, M.A. 100, 110, 119 same sex marriage 44, 45, 177; in Argentina 8, 154, 156, 183; in Latin America 13, 36, 40, 41, 42, 47 Sanguinetti J. 50 Sanseviero, R. 49, 82, 83, 85 separation of power 7, 8, 18; in Argentina 134–5, 180; in Chile 101–2; in Uruguay 70–1, 89, 99 SERNAM 101, 102, 116, 117, 118 Socorristas 35, 176 trans movement/rights 23–4 UCR (Unión Cívica Radical) 136, 137, 149, 151, 186; and abortion bills 158; history of 132, 133, 134 UDI (Unión Democrática Independiente) 53–4, 99, 103, 117 UN Beijing Conference 22, 46, 74, 141 UN Cairo Conference 22, 46, 141 Universidad de Buenos Aires 137, 144, 145 United States 43, 170

191

Uruguay: campaign for abortion reform in 75–80; Catholic Church in 71–2; executive branch in 70–1; political parties in 68–70; and regulation of abortion 49–52; separation of powers in 70–1; women’s movement in 72–4 Valdense Church 76 Vatican: and abortion 38, 42, 43; and Argentina’s government 141, 142, 150, 157, 185; Second Vatican Council 37 Vazquez, T. 69; and abortion 70, 78, 85, 86, 87, 91, 173; and abortion bills 50; and veto 51, 71, 84, 88, 89 women’s movement: in Argentina 138–42; in Latin America 42; and left-wing governments 13, 17; and measurement 16; in Chile 105–8; in Uruguay 51, 72–4; and women’s agencies 15 Xavier, M. 50, 70, 83, 87, 88, 172