Abortion: the possibilities of progress

Editorial, The Lancet
Volume 407, Issue 10538, P1483, April 18, 2026

Women's bodily autonomy and health, particularly with regard to abortion, are under attack. The politicisation of women's bodies and choices is part of a wider attempt to roll back human rights and freedoms of women and marginalised groups. Political parties with regressive ideologies, rising across the world, are finding common cause with anti-gender religious groups. Transnational anti-gender movements have become professionalised and influence national and international agendas. Overseas aid has become a bargaining chip for abortion and gender rights, with dire consequences to sexual and reproductive health. Access to reproductive health information is being restricted by tech corporations, while misinformation is left to proliferate. These trends might prompt despair, but they should not obfuscate the incredible longer-term gains in abortion rights and connected health improvements of the past 60 years, nor the possibility of further ensuring legal, free, and safe abortion for all.

Continued: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(26)00753-1/fulltext

18.04.2026

Two Neighbours, Two Courts, One Paradox: Abortion Rights in the US and Mexico

By Devashri Awasthi, McGill International Review
Mar 21, 2026

In September 2021, Mexico’s Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) unanimously declared criminalizing abortion unconstitutional. Nine months later, the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade (1973). The irony is striking: Mexico—commonly perceived as conservative and overwhelmingly Catholic—expanded abortion rights through judicial reasoning, while the United States—long self-identified as a global rights leader—restricted access through partisan judicial maneuvering. Two neighbouring Christian-majority countries with politically compromised judiciaries reached diametrically opposite conclusions on closely related constitutional questions.

Taken together, these rulings pose a clear comparative puzzle. Holding religion constant and treating politics as the product rather than the cause, analyzing this outcome centres on judicial interpretation, social movements, and international human rights uptake as the channels through which the bounds of the decision were set.

Continued: https://www.mironline.ca/two-neighbours-two-courts-one-paradox-abortion-rights-in-the-us-and-mexico/

Fears for women’s rights in Chile as anti-abortion president set to take office

José Antonio Kast, who voted against legalising divorce in 2004, has pushed for return to total abortion ban

Charis McGowan in Santiago
Tue 10 Mar 2026

Women’s rights activists in Chile are bracing as the most conservative president since the Pinochet dictatorship prepares to take office on Wednesday.

José Antonio Kast, a 60-year-old ultra Catholic whose father was a member of the Nazi party, has consistently blocked progressive bids for women’s rights and equality across his three-decade career in politics.

As a congressman, Kast voted against divorce when Chile became one of the last countries of the world to legalise it in 2004 and vehemently opposed the legalisation of abortion under limited exceptions when it was passed in 2017. He has since pushed to revert to a total ban on abortion and require parental consent for the morning-after pill.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/mar/10/fears-womens-rights-chile-anti-abortion-president-jose-antonio-kast

Rollback and Resistance: The Erosion of Abortion Access in Argentina

Dec 10, 2025
Mercedes Sayagues

The movie “Belén”, Argentina’s submission for the 2026 Oscars, tells the story of a 26-year-old woman who suffered a miscarriage in a hospital in Tucuman province in 2014 and was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2016 after being convicted of procuring an illegal abortion.

Her case sparked a nationwide campaign to decriminalize abortion, known as the Green Tide after the green scarves protestors wore.

In December 2020, the Green Tide won: abortion was legalized on request up to 14 weeks, and later in cases of rape or risk to the woman’s physical or mental health.

Continued: https://healthpolicy-watch.news/rollback-and-resistance-the-erosion-of-abortion-access-in-argentina/

Banning abortion is a hallmark of authoritarian regimes

October 16, 2025
Seda Saluk, Assistant Professor of Women's and Gender Studies, University of Michigan

Pregnant women crossing borders to get an abortion. People who miscarry facing jail time or dying from infection. Doctors who won’t perform lifesaving procedures on a pregnant patient for fear of prosecution.
For years, this was the kind of thing that happened in Poland, Nicaragua or El Salvador. Now, it’s headline news in the United States.

As a scholar who studies the relationship between reproductive rights and political regimes, I see the U.S. mirroring a pattern that has happened in authoritarian regimes around the world. When a government erects barriers to comprehensive reproductive care, it doesn’t just cause more death and suffering for women and their families. Such policies are often a first step in the gradual decline of democracies.

Continued: https://theconversation.com/banning-abortion-is-a-hallmark-of-authoritarian-regimes-265459

Reproductive Rights, Abortion Access Under Threat in Argentina

Rollback of Abortion and Reproductive Health Programs Undermines Women’s and Girls’ Rights

September 26, 2025
Stephanie Lustig, Research Assistant, Women’s Rights Division – Human Rights Watch

Since taking office in December 2023, Argentina’s President Javier Milei and his government have dismantled key sexual and reproductive health protections.

A report published this week by the Center for State and Society Studies (CEDES) shows that harmful rhetoric from Milei on abortion creates “a climate of risk and uncertainty,” causing misinformation and confusion for pregnant people on whether they can access abortion services, disrupting care, and affecting health professionals’ safety.

Continued: https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/09/26/reproductive-rights-abortion-access-under-threat-in-argentina

Protecting the right to abortion: An interview with Fernanda Doz Costa

Fernanda Doz Costa trained as a human rights lawyer in Argentina before becoming Amnesty International’s Director of Gender, Racial Justice and Refugee Rights.

26 September 2025
Amnesty International

To mark International Safe Abortion Day, Fernanda talks about the dangers of unsafe abortions, some of the people she’s supported along the way and the small and easy actions you can take to ensure people around the world can access safe abortions.

Can you tell me about your role at Amnesty and what led you to it?
I lead Amnesty International’s work on gender, racial justice and refugee rights. My journey into this role was shaped by my experience growing up in Argentina during the dictatorship and being an activist during my law school years, advocating for social justice and human rights.

Continued: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2025/09/protecting-the-right-to-abortion-an-interview-with-fernanda-doz-costa/

26.09.2025

Commentary

Amnesty International

International Safe Abortion Day

How a network of women in Latin America transformed safe, self-managed abortions

June 8, 2025
By Marta Martínez, Liana Simstrom
Podcast: 41-Minute Listen

In November 1990, more than 3,000 women descended on the sleepy beach town of San Bernardo del Tuyú, Argentina, for what was becoming a legendary event.

Activists, doctors, academics, social workers and lawyers from across the Americas traveled all the way to attend a feminist gathering known as an Encuentro.

While they publicly debated their political demands, the piece of information that made the biggest impact on the future of abortion was exchanged in private, in whispers.

Continued; https://www.npr.org/2025/06/08/g-s1-68729/latin-america-abortion-activism

08.06.2025

Interviews/Podcasts

'La Escuela Socorrista

abortion accompaniment workshop

abortion manual

abortion pills

abortion support networks

Encuentro Feminista Latinoamericano y del Caribe

First Responders Network

Gabriela Luchetti

green bandana

green wave

Ibis Reproductive Health

Kelly Blanchard

Las Libres

Lesbianas y Feministas por la Descriminalización del Aborto

Lesbians and Feminists for Abortion Decriminalization

self-managed abortion

self-managed abortion manual

Socorristas En Red

Veronica Cruz

Women on Waves

World Health Organization

Argentina used as a ‘testing ground’ for eroding abortion rights, warns Amnesty

Alarm as Javier Milei’s government curbs state supply of abortion pills and seeks to reverse landmark legalization

Harriet Barber in Tucumán
Wed 28 May 2025

Argentina is being used as a “testing ground” for stripping back abortion rights internationally as it cuts funding for contraceptives and ends the distribution of abortion pills, Amnesty International warned on Wednesday.

Before the inauguration of President Javier Milei in December 2023, the state bought abortion pills, which were then distributed for free through the public health system.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/may/28/argentina-womens-rights-javier-milei-testing-ground-eroding-abortion-rights-seek-reverse-landmark-legalisation-warning-amnesty

What the UN’s ruling on abortion in Ecuador and Nicaragua means for the rest of the world

Although implementation will depend on each country, these sorts of rulings have a potential for global influence

By Elizabeth Hlavinka
February 19, 2025

The United Nations Human Rights Committee issued a ruling last month with the potential to expand reproductive rights in Ecuador and Nicaragua. Although it’s unclear how each country will implement the UN mandates handed down, the ruling is a step forward for a growing reproductive rights movement working to decriminalize abortion in Latin America.

In 2016, Planned Parenthood Global, Amnesty International, and other Latin American activism groups came together to form the “Son Niñas, No Madres” (Girls, Not Mothers) movement. They have filed legal cases before the UN Human Rights Committee against Ecuador and Nicaragua, representative of a regional pattern of girls forced to become mothers due to sexual violence and a lack of access to reproductive health services like abortion in 2019.

Continued: https://www.salon.com/2025/02/19/what-the-uns-ruling-on-abortion-in-ecuador-and-nicaragua-means-for-the-rest-of-the-world/