Faith and Body: New Battle Over Abortion in Argentina

Reproductive rights in Argentina face increased obstacles as the administration of Javier Milei emboldens anti-rights groups and politicians.

Ella Fernández
March 10, 2026

On September 25, 2025, as Argentine actress Camila Plaate took the stage after receiving the award for Best Supporting Actress for Belén at the 73rd San Sebastián International Film Festival, she asked, “Who is Belén? I am Belén.”

Belén, the Argentine film directed by Dolores Fonzi, focuses on the true case of a young woman from Tucumán who was imprisoned in 2014 after suffering a miscarriage in a hospital bathroom. She spent 29 months in prison, accused of aggravated homicide.

Continued: https://nacla.org/faith-and-body-new-battle-over-abortion-in-argentina/

A case of conscience: The Christian feminists fighting Brazil’s anti-abortion laws

A growing movement of Christian feminists are making their voice heard as they oppose threats to tighten the country’s abortion laws. Alice McCool reports from inside their fight.

1 May 2025
Alice McCool

Every month, for 15 days, hundreds of women queue outside a public bank in the town square of Viçosa do Ceará, in rural northeast Brazil. As they wait to receive money from the Bolsa Familia programme – government aid for poor Brazilian families – a woman in her sixties speaks to them through a megaphone.

Liliane de Carvalho is there every single day from 6.30am, unless ‘something unexpected happens’. As a longstanding member of a local Catholic church, she’s preaching – but not about sin or guilt. She’s preaching about the right to abortion.

Continued: https://newint.org/women/2025/case-conscience-christian-feminists-fighting-brazils-anti-abortion-laws

Bolivian teens seeking abortions meet misinformation online

Bolivian teens with unwanted pregnancies can be stymied by anti-abortion groups using online sites to spread misinformation.

Nathalie Iriarte
April 23, 2025

SANTA CRUZ DE LA SIERRA, Bolivia - When Kasandra, a teenager in Bolivia, discovered she was pregnant at 15 as a result of rape, her already troubled life fell apart.

The unwanted pregnancy was a horrible milestone in the years of sexual abuse and beatings she had endured at the hands of her stepfather that began when she was 11.

"To have a child was the worst. My stepfather was going to kick me out of the house or kill me," Kasandra, who did not want her real name used, told Context.

Continued: https://www.context.news/big-tech/bolivian-teens-seeking-abortions-meet-misinformation-online

‘You feel like a criminal’: How trans people are pushed further to the margins in anti-abortion Brazil

Dec 8, 2024

São Paulo, Brazil — In the summer of 2023, Matheus terminated his pregnancy at a friend’s house. 26-year-old Matheus, who identifies as nonbinary and uses he/she pronouns, said he, made the decision because he felt unsafe with the person he had sex with, and the pregnancy triggered his gender dysphoria.

“I thought about how my body would be with the pregnancy, and it shakes me,” he told CNN, sitting at a park in the Brazilian city of São José dos Campos. “My breasts would have milk, and my breasts are a part of my body, that really bothers me”. Despite the toll the pregnancy would have taken on Matheus’ mental health – whose real name has been changed to protect his identity – what he did is illegal.

Continued: https://www.bundle.app/en/breakingNews/'you-feel-like-a-criminal':-how-trans-people-are-pushed-further-to-the-margins-in-anti-abortion-braz-da92d3b1-953c-4e45-bc98-a3ebee9f794f

Catholic activists work to help Hispanic women reconcile abortion rights with their religious faith

Jan 28, 2024

In a corner of their Mexico City office, activists from Catholics for the Right to Decide keep an image of the Virgin Mary close to a green scarf that reads: “Mary was consulted to be mother of God.”

For these Catholic women, prayer does not conflict with their fight for abortion access nor does their devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe prevent them from supporting LGBTQ+ rights.

“You might think that one cannot be a feminist and a Catholic,” said activist Cinthya Ramírez. “But being women of faith does not mean that we oppose progressivity, human rights or sexual diversity.”

Continued: https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/newswire/catholic-activists-work-help-hispanic-women-reconcile-abortion-rights-religious-faith/

Catholic activists in Mexico help women reconcile their faith with abortion rights

By María Teresa Hernández, The Associated Press
Saturday, December 16, 2023

MEXICO CITY (AP) — In a corner of their Mexico City office, activists from Catholics for the Right to Decide keep an image of the Virgin Mary close to a green scarf that reads: “Mary was consulted to be mother of God.”

For these Catholic women, prayer does not conflict with their fight for abortion access nor does their devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe prevent them from supporting LGBTQ+ rights.

Continued: https://www.thestar.com/news/world/catholic-activists-in-mexico-help-women-reconcile-their-faith-with-abortion-rights/article_412ee0ae-cd6b-5406-8579-1e40297674d1.html

Abortion may be legal in Argentina but women still face major obstacles

Mar 4, 2023
By Agustina Latourrette, BBC World Service

María was 23 when she decided to have an abortion. At the health centre where she had gone for treatment, she says she overheard one doctor saying to a colleague: "When will these girls learn to keep their legs closed?"

María lives in Salta, a religiously conservative province in north-west Argentina, where many healthcare workers are still against abortion. She was eventually given a pill to end her pregnancy, but she says the nurses were reluctant to treat her and wanted to make her feel guilty: "After I expelled the pregnancy tissue, I could see the foetus."

Continued: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-64784660

IN PHOTOS: Here’s how green became the colour of abortion rights

By Amanda Connolly, Global News
Posted July 6, 2022

From the streets of Poland to crowds in Argentina, Mexico and, most recently, the United States following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, abortion rights protests have something in common: the colour green.

Green banners, snapping in the air. Green scarves, green bandanas, green shirts.

Continued: https://globalnews.ca/news/8970022/green-colour-of-abortion-rights/

’The court owes it to women’: Groups decry Colombia’s abortion ruling delay

The Constitutional Court had been expected to make history Friday, but it didn't happen. Unsafe abortions are the country's fourth-leading cause of maternal mortality.

Nov. 23, 2021

By Albinson Linares, Noticias Telemundo

Women's groups that sued to decriminalize abortion in Colombia are pushing for
a decision after a much-anticipated ruling from the country's top court was
postponed last week.

“The court owes it to women," Catalina Martínez Coral, the Latin America
and Caribbean director of the Center for Reproductive Rights, told Noticias
Telemundo.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/-court-owes-women-groups-decry-colombias-abortion-ruling-delay-rcna6477

Brazil – Legal and safe abortion is not a matter of religion, but of public health

October 1, 2021
by Jenni Smith

Policies to protect women in Brazil continue to be irresponsible, which has generated deaths, diverse violence and deepened inequalities in the country.

Last Tuesday (28), the Global Day for Safe Abortion took place. The date was celebrated by our Chilean neighbors with the approval by the Chamber of Deputies of the decriminalization of abortion until the 14th week, a project that goes to vote in the other legislative house.

Continued: https://playcrazygame.com/2021/10/01/legal-and-safe-abortion-is-not-a-matter-of-religion-but-of-public-health-09-30-2021-djamila-ribeiro/