Chile’s abortion rights movement faces uphill battle

Advocates say fight continues despite rejection of new constitution last year that would have enshrined reproductive rights.

By Charis McGowan
10 Mar 2023

Santiago, Chile – Siomara Molina stands on the steps of the Chilean National Library on a busy street in the heart of Chile’s capital.

Waving fists in the air and wearing green scarves, symbolic of the Latin American movement for abortion rights, Molina and the dozens of women around her chant: “Abortion yes, abortion no, that’s my decision”.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/10/chiles-abortion-rights-movement-faces-uphill-battle

‘Outsider Girls,’ Chilean Dramedy About Abortion Dilemma, Debuts Trailer Ahead of Rotterdam Premiere

By Anna Marie de la Fuente
Jan 30, 2023

Niña Niño Films’ “Outsider Girls” (“Las Demás”), the debut feature of rising Chilean talent Alexandra Hyland, which world premieres in the Bright Future sidebar of Intl. Film Festival Rotterdam, has bowed its trailer exclusively with Variety.

Hyland was named one of Variety’s Five Chilean Talents to Watch in 2018. Her feature debut follows best friends Gaby (played by Alicia Luz Rodriguez) and Rafa (Nicole Sazo), two college girls whose pink-hued oasis is disrupted when Rafa gets pregnant after a night of debauchery. Given Chile’s ultra-conservative society, abortion is illegal except in extreme cases. They set out to earn enough to pay for the pricey abortion pills through a series of oddball part-time jobs, straining their friendship in the process.

Continued: https://variety.com/2023/film/global/outsider-girls-rotterdam-1235506196/

30.01.2023

What The Green Scarf Means In The Fight For Reproductive Rights

FRANCES SOLÁ-SANTIAGO
MAY 17, 2022

When a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion in early May revealed that Rove v. Wade will likely be overturned, protests broke out across the country, as activists pushed for lawmakers to codify the landmark decision that protected a pregnant person’s right to choose abortion via the Women’s Health Protection Act. Over the weekend, the New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America held a march and called on all the attendees to wear green and “bring your green bandana.” Similar protests were held in cities like Miami and Washington, D.C., where many attendees likewise sported green scarves on their wrists and necks.

While the green scarf may be the new symbol of the pro-abortion fight in the U.S, it's been around for at least a decade. In fact, it emerged in Argentina in the late 2010s, as the country’s activists fought to decriminalize abortion in a sweeping movement that earned them the title “Marea Verde” or “Green Wave.”

Continued: https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2022/05/10978997/green-scarf-meaning-roe-v-wade-protests

How Latin American women are winning the battle for abortion rights

Argentina, Colombia and Mexico have recently legalised or decriminalised abortion. Could Chile be next?

Diana Cariboni
29 April 2022

It was inconceivable, just five years ago, that ultra-conservative Colombia would decriminalise abortion, or that Catholic, neoliberal Chile would be gearing up to vote on a new constitution that enshrines sexual and reproductive rights, including on-request abortion.

Yet in February, Colombia’s constitutional court removed abortion (up to 24 weeks) from the criminal code in response to a court case brought by Causa Justa – the spearhead of a wide-ranging social and legal campaign of more than 120 groups and thousands of activists.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/women-latin-america-winning-abortion-rights/

Chile abortion debate gets key place in Constitution redraft

By Alexander Villegas
Posted on March 16, 2022

SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Chile’s divisive battle over abortion rights could get a central role in the Andean country’s planned new constitution after an assembly voted to approve part of the draft text that calls on the state to guarantee women’s reproductive rights.

A week after thousands of women marched through the streets of Santiago on International Women’s Day, Chile’s constituent assembly voted to include reproductive rights, including “a voluntary interruption of pregnancy” in the draft constitution.

Continued: https://www.metro.us/chile-abortion-debate-gets/

16.03.2022

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Chile: the Constituent Assembly included legal abortion in the draft of the new Magna Carta

The draft of the new Constitution should be ready in July

HELEN HERNANDEZ
March 15, 2022

Paragraph two of article 16 on sexual and reproductive rights of the new Magna Carta that is debated in the Constitutional Convention of Chile proposes to transform into law the voluntary interruption of pregnancy. The right – entered through the mechanism of “popular initiative” – was incorporated into the text of the new constitution with more than two thirds of the votes of the constituents.

The draft of the new Constitution - It should be ready in July to then be put to a citizenship plebiscite. The incorporation of the right to abortion was approved by 108 conventions (they needed 103), it had 39 rejections and six abstentions. “The State guarantees the exercise of sexual and reproductive rights without discrimination, with a focus on gender, inclusion and cultural belonging,” says the paragraph.

Continued: https://oicanadian.com/chile-the-constituent-assembly-included-legal-abortion-in-the-draft-of-the-new-magna-carta-the-draft-of-the-new-constitution-should-be-ready-in-july/

15.03.2022

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Chile lawmakers knock down bill to ease abortion rules

by Fabian Cambero
Nov 30, 2021

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Chile's lower Chamber of Deputies rejected a bill on Tuesday that sought to expand legal access for women to get abortions, legislation that was opposed by the South American country's center-right government.

At the end of
September, legislators in the chamber voted in favor of studying and debating
the bill, that proposed legalizing termination of pregnancy up to 14 weeks.

Continued: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/chile-lawmakers-knock-down-bill-ease-abortion-rules-2021-11-30/

30.11.2021

El Salvador women march against abortion laws amid planned Latin America-wide protests

Sep 28, 2021
By Ana Isabel Martinez and Gerardo Arbaiza

SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) – Scores of people in El Salvador waved green flags and marched through the capital San Salvador en route to Congress to demand loosening of the country’s “strict” abortion laws, with similar protests planned across Latin American cities.

Holding up banners saying “it’s our right to decide” and “legal abortion, safe and free,” the mostly-women protesters met as part of the “International Safe Abortion Day” being marked around the globe.

Continued: https://whbl.com/2021/09/28/el-salvador-women-march-against-abortion-laws-amid-planned-latin-america-wide-protests/

28.09.2021

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Chile takes ‘first step’ towards decriminalising abortion

Proposed bill to legalise abortion up to 14 weeks hailed by Chilean legislator as ‘tremendous’ step for women’s rights.

28 Sep 2021

Chile’s lower house of Congress has approved a plan to debate a bill that would expand women’s access to legal abortions, a “first step” that could see the country join a small but growing list of Latin American countries that are easing restrictions on the procedure.

Despite opposition from Chile’s centre-right government, the nation’s Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday passed the motion with 75 votes in favour versus 68 against, with two abstentions.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/28/chile-takes-first-step-towards-decriminalising-abortion

Argentina: Can one country’s change of abortion law alter a continent?

By Katy Watson, BBC South America correspondent
March 4, 2021

When Argentina's Congress voted to legalise abortion up to the 14th week of pregnancy, Renata (not her real name) felt excited.

"How cool," the 20-year-old from
northern Brazil remembers thinking in late December. A student and supermarket
worker, Renata saw it as the start of something new in a region where abortion
is mostly illegal.

But she thought little more of it until a
week later, when she found out she was pregnant herself. Then, she says, her
world collapsed.

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-56098334