America’s restrictive turn on abortion pushes against a regional — and democratic — trend

Abortion rights activists celebrate last month after Colombia's supreme court decriminalized abortion. (Fernando Vergara/AP)
Abortion rights activists celebrate last month after Colombia's supreme court decriminalized abortion. (Fernando Vergara/AP)

This month, legislators in Guatemala approved a draconian law ordering up to 10 years in prison for women who have abortions. The disturbing move, part of a larger ultraconservative bill, was thankfully reversed by the country’s Congress last week. As it happens, it was also an outlier, pushing against momentum in the region toward giving women more control over their reproductive choices.

The U-turn on the law came just a few weeks after a landmark decision by the supreme court in Colombia that made abortion legal up to the 24th week of pregnancy. The ruling, which handed an electrifying victory to women’s rights groups and their allies in the fight for reproductive freedoms, is part of a transformative trend sweeping across Latin America, a deeply Catholic and largely conservative region. This shift underscores just how far out of step the United States’ trajectory is, compared with both its neighborhood in the Americas and the rest of the democratic, developed world.

The court in Colombia agreed with the plaintiffs — a coalition of activist groups, mostly women’s groups, that have spent years working for this moment — that the abortion ban violates constitutionally protected freedoms, including the right to human dignity, liberty and equality. Among other arguments, plaintiffs maintained and the court agreed that the now-overturned law amounted to discrimination against poor women living in rural areas, who had no access to lawyers, psychologists or physicians who could make the case that their abortions should be legal under the previous law, which allowed it only in extreme circumstances.

The old law, they said, resulted in some 400,000 clandestine abortions each year and created a climate of fear. Before this ruling, the law allowed sentences of up to 54 months for violations of abortion restrictions. Hundreds of women were charged each year with violating the ban and scores, most very poor, died yearly after receiving underground, unregulated abortions. The court advised Colombia’s Congress to develop laws not only to remove obstacles to abortion but also to help women with family planning and adoption alternatives.

The Catholic Church, which remains enormously influential in Colombia and most of Latin America, and Colombia’s conservative president, Iván Duque, decried the court’s decision, as did evangelical groups, now making inroads in the region. But for most Colombians, who — like a majority of Americans — support abortion rights, the ruling is a welcome step.

Indeed, across Latin America, a stunning shift has been underway in recent years. In September, the Mexican supreme court issued its own landmark verdict, legalizing abortion across the country of 130 million people. In December 2020, Argentina’s legislature made abortion legal up to 14 weeks into pregnancy. It’s part of a “green tide”, the regional push for safe and legal abortions, named after the handkerchiefs that abortion rights advocates have waved as their banner.

The battle to secure abortion rights across the region, however, is far from over. Latin America’s largest country, Brazil, still bans the procedure in nearly all cases. In Chile — where even divorce was illegal until 2004 — the Senate took its first steps in 2017, allowing abortion if the mother’s life is at risk or in case of rape, but a recent effort to further expand rights failed.

El Salvador maintains one of the most draconian antiabortion laws on Earth — and it enforces them ruthlessly. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the hemisphere’s top human rights body, recently issued a scathing ruling accusing El Salvador of violating the human rights of a woman, identified only as Manuela, who died in prison while serving a 30-year sentence for “aggravated homicide” after suffering a miscarriage and being taken to the hospital, where doctors called the police. It was just one of many such cases. Sara Rogel was released last year after nine years in a Salvadoran prison after losing what her advocates called a “very wanted” pregnancy.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the Supreme Court has heard arguments in cases challenging Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that made abortion legal nationwide, and seems poised to overturn it. Texas passed a law effectively banning abortions after six weeks, before many women even realize they’re pregnant, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly declined to block it from being implemented. Idaho became the first state to enact essentially a copy of the Texas law this month. And Florida passed a bill banning abortions after 15 weeks, allowing exceptions only if the mother’s life is in danger or if there are “fatal fetal anomalies” identified by two doctors. There are efforts to restrict abortions in at least 29 states.

Around the world, the wave toward expanding rights is particularly visible among democracies: Not all democracies allow abortion, and not all autocracies ban it, but there’s a definite correlation between democratic freedoms and abortion rights. In general, free countries allow women greater freedom to decide whether they want to continue a pregnancy.

The free world is largely moving toward greater reproductive rights. A glaring exception, ironically, is the United States — the country that likes to think of itself as a global beacon of freedom.

Frida Ghitis is a former CNN producer and correspondent who writes about world affairs for the Washington Post, CNN.com and World Politics Review.

Deja una respuesta

Tu dirección de correo electrónico no será publicada. Los campos obligatorios están marcados con *