Other large countries in Latin America have either legalised or decriminalized

Apr 9th 2026

On a Sunday afternoon last year, Gloria (not her real name) got a knock on the door. It was a former neighbour who said he was passing through her remote Amazon village and wanted to catch up. He proceeded to drug and rape her. She did not go to the police because “they don’t investigate rape”. After discovering she was pregnant she took the morning-after pill, but it was too late. She bought misoprostol, an abortion drug, on the “dark web”, but was scammed. Eventually she found a charity that paid for a bus ticket to the nearest hospital providing abortions, 2,500km away. “It hurt, but I felt good,” she says. “If someone from where I live finds out, my God, it would be like having a sign on my face that says ‘prostitute’.”

In the past five years most big countries in Latin America have moved towards legalising abortion. Argentina led the way in 2021, allowing abortion until the 14th week of pregnancy. In 2022 Colombia followed suit. Mexico decriminalised abortion in 2023. Brazil is now a regional outlier. Abortion is permitted in theory if the mother’s life is at risk, if the pregnancy was the result of rape, or if the foetus has anencephaly, a fatal deformity.

Continued: https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2026/04/09/there-is-little-prospect-of-legalising-abortion-in-brazil